September 30, 2013

Hello there family! 

How are y'all doing, I bet so good, and let me just say happy birthday to my little niece! Woot woot! I love her so much! 

Ok well let's see, this week has been super good, like every week in the mission. We actually had a ton of success and it was awesome. 

We really have a really good pool of investigators right now that are awesome y some really cool miracles that happen with them daily. This week one of the English members that we know pretty well called me up and asked that we come teach her friends who can speak both Spanish and English. She told us the English elders have been trying to teach her and get her to church for about the last 6 months. But they never did go to church and they just didnt "feel it". The member that called us and said maybe Spanish  would be the key. Well we went over there knowing we had to make a very good impression, so we got a sweet Proclomation to the World in Spanish and gave it to them. We went over there and had a really good first visit and set up a next lesson, but they addressed their concerns to us of why they haven't gone to church. They didn't want to because they felt like everyone they knew in the church was raised in it. So they couldnt relate. Soooooo, we decided to bring a recent convert with us, who was baptized  6 months ago and is the STRONGEST member we know. Truly it was the BEST lesson in my mission, because we didnt speak! It was Rosie, (the recent convert) just bearing her testimony and saying how much she loved the church!! So, so cool. When we left the lesson, they told us they have never been so excited to go to church. Sunday came, and they came! Wow! It was so cool, literally, I can't express the work of the member helping us! 

So those classes we are going to start are coming along great. This Sunday was a little differnt than others, because we organized the sacrament meeting, and talked about the lessons of the missionaries. So my ward mission leader asked me to talk on the Plan of Salvation, 2 recent converts to speak about the restoration and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then Elder Olsen to talk about the commandments.  Those are the topics of the 4 lessons of missionaries.

Well, Sunday comes and I prepare a sick talk, (we were asked to talk for about 15 minutes) my talk was about the Plan of Salvation, or so I thought...haha I was assigned to speak second but the first person got up and said..."hello today I was asked to speak of the Plan of Salvation"....haha so yeah, my ward mission leader looked at me and just with a terrorized face! Haha, so quickly I had to adjust my talk to the restoration, I dunno it was actually kind of cool. I felt ready for it. And excited to kinda just get up there in front of everyone and be led my the Spirit! The talk went super well and many people told me it was great and touched their hearts. Cool! 

Speaking of Spanish, got another really cool compliment this weelk, some one told me that I sound like a native, I don't have a white boy accent. Or a "huero accent" in their words. I have been really trying to work on that too! Cool! Yay. 

Also, we had a baptism. Fun times! It was Emily, Mariana's niece. Mariana is my recent convert from 3 months ago! Cool to see Mariana and her strong testimony, and how she has spread it to all her family too! It was a great baptism and Elder Creasy baptized her! I was sooo happy to see him do that! I am so glad my greenie got to have that expreience! I love my recent convert Mariana! It is so cool, because she comes out with us all the time, we go walk around with her an see potentials and everytime, there she is preaching her heart out! I love it! 

It's fun to see that. Also, today is my 8 month mark. Wow. What the heck, where has the time gone? 

Is anyone ecxited for conference!?!?!?! I am. It's so cool to see that 6 months ago I was there in Cerritos finishing my first transfer and still being trained, to now finishing my first transfer of training! What the heck?? 

Ok well I love you all! Have a good day,transfers  are this week but I know I'm  staying here with Creasey! Cool! 

Love y'all,

Elder Schooff

September 23, 2013

Hello! 

Well how are you all doing? I hope all so well. This week was such a good week and I love my life y my mission! It's crazy to think that this transfer is already coming to an end soon, only 2 more weeks. What in the world?! But it's been super fun. 

We (again) had some really, really cool miracles. It's so wonderful to see how the Lord really does trust us and shows us what we need to do when we call on Him. So cool. This week we had a really cool story.

Ok...this story is kinda of embarrassing. Let's see, it was Thursday night, y we had an AWESOME dinner with the family Sepulvada. I love this family they are so cool. Hermano served in Puerto Rico and always shows us his old mission stuff and cool mission stories. But anyways Hermana made Ceviche (my favorite thing in the world) y I'm not going to lie, I pigged out on it! But the thing is, I think I was allergic to something in it.. haha, but we left dinner and started our night out. Before we started we said a prayer and specifically asked for a miracle, for the spirit to guide us and show us the way. Well, we had a really really set lesson planned and we were pumped! But..as a lot of times on missions, things fall through! But still we were not really discouraged, I just started to feel really, really sick. haha, We were really close to the apartment but also kinda close to the park. For some reason I just don't like going back to the apartment during the day, I like to just stay out. So we went to the park! We went to the park so I could "settle myself" haha, yeah (embarrassing part) but anyways as we were getting back into it, after I felt better, we started to bike away. But I saw a guy sitting alone in the park. The strongest impression came over me that I had to talk to him, but I felt like we had been in the park for long enough. But I KNEW I had to talk to him. So I stopped and ask my companion how he felt, and asked "Elder do you feel that?" haha, he so awesomely said "Elder we gotta talk to that guy over there." 

It was sooo cool! So we knew the spirit was guiding us. We walked over to him and just said something kinda simple - like we start a lot of the contacts we start. But he stops me and says, "Mormons huh, I was baptized in your church 14 years ago in Honduras, I saw you guys and so badly wanted to talk to y'all, I was just too afraid. I prayed that you would...y now here you are standing talking to me, thank you." 

WHAT?!?! How cool right! Like you can't get better, so we are getting him to come back to church. He said he has been in America for about 10 years and in LA for the most part and has been looking for the church for a long time, and his wife isn't a member! So now we are going to start to teach her! Man I love the mission! 

I see so many cool things happen all the time in the mission! 

Right now we have some really really solid investigators! They are all awesome and some wonderful miracles have happened with them, like out investigator Jessica, we asked her after we taught the 1st lesson if she believes if it is true. She said, "Yes, it just feels right and just know in my heart this is right." How sick is that! Man I love it! 

Also this week, was my first time going to In n Out with a member!! Woot woot!! Yeah man! Some little miracle happened with that ;) 

We had a really cool FHE with the bishop last week too, man I love our ward. It's so great and it's been so fun working with them. We helped them clean their pool. So random, also I am an official cook, I have moved on from frozen pizzas and on to Rice a Roni! Cool huh? 

This week I really started studying about the Miracles of Christ. y man it's been so cool, I am just falling in love with all the stories of His ministry! Cool. 

Ok family well I love ya'll! Until next week! 

Elder Schooff

September 16, 2013

Hello family!! 

How is everyone doing, let me first just say that I love y'all oh so much. Truly. 

Ok well let's see, this week have been so, so, so good! 

Again, we are having tons of success with all our members. but here is the thing... I don't know if all of you know but the ward is a little different than other wards, there are 2 different missions in our ward. The Anaheim and the LB mission. Which sometimes can cause a frustration. It's hard sometimes because the church building is in our mission but the Stake Center is in theirs. So they are only allowed to come over here for church and Wednesday night activities and correlation. So this last week, we had a lot of success with members, but this is OUR members on our side and really I got to thinking that we don't know ANY of the members on their side, it's hard because you can really see a division in the ward. So many people before have said, "Oh yeah there is a BIG problem and the ward is having a hard time." And I found out that the ward was 2 DAYS away from splitting into 2 branches, that would have been bad because the mission should adjust to the wards not the other way around, like missionaries leave but the ward stays forever!  We only see some members on Sundays... and they have some awesome members. This has been bothering me a little, me and my companion. We talked about it with the missionaries of Anaheim and they agreed, we want to use ALL of our members to move the work around faster. I thought about it, and my companion and I decided to pray and seek the Lord's counsel  We really felt impressed to start Member Missionary Classes every Wednesday. Where, as missionaries, we teach a class to the ward from 6:30-7:30 about how to be a missionary. But not just that but what to do IN a real lesson. Like role-play in a sense, just like we practice teach every morning as missionaries, so the members can feel more excited and ready to go out with us! Then BAM right after 7:30 we take them out with us and hit the streets or go to some set lessons until about 8:30. We are super excited to do this! It will show us the members we can use on that side! We can really reunite this ward! So, so cool, and I have seen the ward's help in this! So much! We are MORE than excited to do this! Woot woot, hopefully it all works! 

So yeah this last week has been good, I really have been studying Charity. And WOW. It's everything, it's pretty crazy in in Timothy 4;12 it says: 

12 Let no man ^adespise thy youth; but be thou an ^bexample of the believers, in word, in ^cconversation, IN CHARITY, in spirit, in faith, in ^dpurity.

And in Spanish it says something different: 

12 Ninguno tenga en poco tu juventud, sino sé ^aejemplo de los creyentes en palabra, en conducta, EN AMOR, en espíritu, en fe y en ^bpureza.

It replaces the word charity (which is usually caridad) with LOVE (amor) 

LOVE is charity! Cool huh, and if we have no charity we are NOTHING. (Moroni 7:45-48)

That's pretty cool to see! I love Spanish. I also have been really trying to focus on pleading with the Lord in all things I do, especially Spanish! Wow has it worked. I can really see myself improving. Someone gave me a compliment on the street while we were contacting and the person said..."Listen I was not in the beginning interested to hear you white boy talk to me, but your grammar is perfect, where did you study?" I was soooo happy! I loved that because that's one thing I have been working on HARD is the grammar. Cool. 

Also...this week I played guitar...NOOOO!!! haha, it was so lame but a true wonderful experience. As you all know, I really don't want to play guitar on my mission. I swore it off to give myself to the Lord. But, we were searching for a potential this last week and we heard someone playing the violin (my companion is super good at it) so we went to knock on the door and it turned out to be a guitar...he opened up the door and asked if he played, and BOOM like that he told me, "Tocela," which means "play it!" I just grabbed it. But as i did I heard a little voice telling me..."Play the guitar, it's ok." so I did, and I just tuned the guitar and played something little small (because I have forgotten EVERYTHING!!) haha, and after we asked why he was trying to learn, and his response..."I'm playing so that God will maybe hear me, I play for God". WHAT?!?! Like how cool!!! Now we are teaching him and, every Friday we teach piano too in the church and he wants to come to that! Wow, miracles of a mission. Cool! 

Also this last week, was my first time going to an English ward...it's so weird! Haha, stake conference was this last Sunday so we could go...haha man I love my mission! 

Ok all well I love you, thank you all for the love, mail and packages! They help so much! Until again! 

Elder Schooff 

September 9, 2013

Hello family! 

Hello hello hello! Well I hope y'all are doing more than fantastic! I know I am. LOVING my mission. We have had a really good week, with a LOT of success, that hopefully we will see the fruits of our labors soon. Again, we just have been pulling those members out with us every night. It's so crazy to see that the Lord really has "sympathy" for us when we have members, even if we just bring out the member for just the night to go by potentials or stuff like that the Lord provides miracles and the members catch that fire of member missionary work. So challenge for all y'all out there, GO with the missionaries around you, you will not regret it! And they will LOVE you along the way. Do it!  This gospel is true. So true.

So it's so wierd that tomorrow is the tune up for my companion, he has now been out for 2 weeks! Woot woot! And it is flying by! I remember my tuneup, that was like 6 months ago! So weird, time FLIES on a mission and it's crazy to barely see it go by. 

We had a really cool thing happen this week, well we were out on the streets and about to pass by a potential we had and then just felt inspired to talk to this guy working in his garage. We talked to him about families and eternity because he had children, when we are doing this his wife pulls up in her car and we talk with all of them for a second and set up a return apt. So we go by the next appointment and brought an AWESOME member with us, he is one of my all time favorites, hermano sepulveda! and he is a missionary machine! It was so cool to see basically when we taught the 1st lesson, we just went over the first and he just explains everything and testifies that it's true. It's always good to have that member that can actually relate. i mean like we are in the white shirt and ties, but when they see someone with a real life, real problems and real jobs and trials they can relate and how the gospel has helped! It's the best! So we taught a BOMB lesson and commited them all the baptism next month and they are very interested and accepted! So so cool! We still have to work around the kinks! It's fun, now it's up to the Lord. 

So now on our mission we have been permitted to use LDS.org! Woot woot! Now we can do whatever! Yeah man, so yeah let's see. We can get all the GC talks, hint hint...if anyone wants to send me conference talks on CD's...that would be sick! haha. 

Man, well this is truly the work of the Lord. I LOVE it! Well, I'll see y'all soon, send me some letters, I wanna write all! haha 

Love y'all, 

Elder Schooff 

September 2, 2013

Hello! What's up family!! 

Ok well, this week has been full of fun and let me just say that I really do love to learn my mission more and more every day! It's so fun out here. It's pretty crazy because the mission is so small. So small, I love that because I get to see other elders and old companions all the time. 

So this last week as you all know I have started to train someone again! This time for real though. We went and picked up the greenies and went rolling! My companion name is Elder Creasey! It's so cool. I LOVE to train and my companion is the best! He is so humble and has a wonderful desire to work hard too! 

We have had a ton of success and it's been great. My companion totally does have that "greeny fire" and its great, we have had so many new investigators great experiences! 

Speaking of one of the crazy moments we saw some ghetto stuff this week. So there is a gang in Buena Park that was pretty bad in the early 2000s. But they all went to jail for like murder or something...super sketchy. They are all out of jail now and they live inmy investigator's   complex! We had a lesson and it was crazy! We are talking to our investigator and they came up and started talking to our investigator. They were super drunk and ruined the lessons  and some other things happened and I was quite upset to say the least. But then that night one of them fell off the balcony and busted up his head and they all went to jail again. And our investigator is still being taught! It was an eye opener to my new companion that the mission can be ghetto. It's been a crazy week, we have seen some cool, cool things happen. 

One thing I have studied this week and tried to learn was the word Murmur. Weird Right? But really, we were listening to a conference talk and it said something interesting, "If we murmur the spirit can't work in us." Simple but powerful. I love in 1 Nephi 3:6, when it says that Nephi was favored by The Lord  because he didn't murmur. That he went and did those things because he had a good attitude about it. I love that, and really if we have that trust and faith in the Lord, and He will provide a way for all things, if we truly have that LOVE for The Lord and trust. We have no reason to murmur. Cool huh? I just love the gospel! 

Well family it's going super good here, the ward I have is great and they are on fire with coming out with us! Woot woot! 

Until next week y'all! Love ya,

Elder Schooff!