May 26, 2014 - THIS WEEK WAS GNARLY

SUP family!

How are all y'all doing? I hope just awesome! Well this week a bunch happened! Like it was packed to the brim, but this is the time for miracles up over here in CA! The land of dreams, it's the best.

Well so this week we started out with a cool miracle, Elder Beyer and I really wanted to start out with a cool miracle and find a NEW person so set a baptism date with, and bring a member too. Well we were going by a potential and they were not there, we felt that we needed to be there for a reason, and right now (well always) we are trying to talk to EVERYONE we see in our path, we saw this woman watering her lawn and her son was running around playing in it. We sparked up a conversation, and it was simple but set up a return appointment for the next day in the morning, we then called a member so see if she would like to come with us the lesson the following day, Hma Romero the member said yes. Well the next morning Jackie (the contact we contacted) called US to confirm and asked us what she could do to prepare for us to come over, how cool is that!? So we went over with Hma Romero and wow, it was such a powerful lesson. Jackie is prepared by God to accept this gospel, she told us that she has been praying for help and is open to anything if God tells her what is true! She has so many member friends and stuff, and Hma Romero did so well at just being a good friend there for ya! And what's cool is they live like right next to each other! So cool, we set a baptism date and she is on the fast path to get baptized! Cooool! After we were leaving, we were walking to Hma Romeros house and talking, she told us that she has really been trying to do a lot of missionary work and she was praying to go out with us and help someone! Well how cool is it that she got to help her with someone that lives right across the street! It's cool to see how God answers ALL our prayers and somehow they all intertwined. God is so good!

     

Well later in the week, I went to my doctor's appointment to check out my heels, got some sweet steroid injections in them...hurt like gnarly! But hey, let's see if it helps! I'm grateful to be in such a wonderful mission that God sent me to for all the physical needs that need to be had!

      

Again, some of the most spiritual experiences of my whole mission happened this week, like it was awesome. I learned a lot, and I'm so grateful for those very sacred moments! I love God and helping others! I was sure to write them in my journal!

       

This week was a super good week with the members coming out with us! One night we brought Hermano Reyna with us and we had a good lesson with an investigator. Afterwards we were about to go home, but I heard from another elder he has some CRAZY stuff in his house, Hmo Reyna is a professional Aztec dancer and choreographer, so he has all this gnarly dance clothing and stuff, and some other...stuff too, I asked him if it was true that he had a Tiger Skin from Africa, and he started laughing and asked how I knew that...well he told me he does and then said, "Alguin puede ir a la carcel si lo tiene" hahah and just started to laugh again, that means, "You can go to jail if you have the tiger skin!" But he explained why he has it and it was a funny time, we had a nice funny photoshoot with all his stuff, I'll send pics attached! Haha, I love the Hispanic culture! It's just so nice and happy! I love the language and learning more about it!

      

Paps, I have been making orange rolls! Be proud of me for that! 

Well also, this week we got to Sunday and we all our goals met except for one, we need one more member present lesson, and we really wanted to exercise our faith so we went and prayed and asked God for help. Well...by the end of the night we got our goal but with a bunch for success. The Lord provides so much. 

This week we also had a really good lesson with a man named Sam, I don't know if I have already explained who he is but I'll do it again just in case...he is a 94 year old man that was baptized when he was 8 and never went to church after that. He forgot he was baptized and doesn't know anything about the church. He was in World War 2. And wow, he has some stories, very intense stories. I have seen a lot stuff in my mission and seen what the gospel can do to people, but seeing a 94 year old man, break down and open up to us as we talked to him was very special, he just told us He doesn't know if what he did was right, the war really affected him and never has forgot that. He wants closer and wants to know that what he did in war is OK in the eyes of God. As we talked to him you could see the spirit of Christ in him open up and work with in him. The Gospel can truly change anyone. 

I love my mission and I love all of you so much have a great week, I turn 20 in less than a month, hey now..that's crazy. But I love it! 

Elder Schooff 

May 19, 2014 - It's getting HAWT out here, in all types of ways.

Hello family!!!

Ok well this week was super fun and I had a really good time, I have really been trying to count my blessings as much as possible and man I totally see the blessings of it!

This week it was an average of 100 degrees or more, topping at 108 at some moments. HOT!

This last Tuesday I was on exchanges, that was a blast. We had to go down to Fountain Valley so the elders could go to a doctors appointment, my name fits me well, Schooff-er...haha get it?? Like a chauffeur.

Well that was a good exchange, Wednesday was all exchanges too, I think we had a really good spiritual time, I got to go on exchanges with my Hijo, the missionary I trained. That was a blast, it's cool to see how he has progressed an has become a better elder than me! Cool!

Well Thursday rolled around and we were all pumped, as a district we all decided to eat a habenero pepper whole after District Meeting, so funny. We all gathered in the kitchen of the church and plowed in...it was super funny, the sisters just yelled, "5..4..3..2..1..eat!!" And we did it, held up the stem to show we did it and boom. It turned into a whole zone thing and some elders were dying while some where not even fazed. Super funny, for me personally....I handled it better than I thought, but I totally shed some tears. Pretty hot.  Now we just need to find the actual ghost pepper.

On Friday, we had a really cool miracle, we were going on exchanges later that day after dinner, and we had a couple sets in the morning, or actually right at 12:30, with an older lady named Carmen, she was a referral from a street contact. So we went by, well we go by on Friday at 12:30 and she was there waiting for us! We were very surprised, and she told us that she read the pamphlet and book we left with her, (The Book of Mormon) well we were going to enter her house but we could not, there was no other man in the house, (in our mission there is a rule that we can't enter into a house unless there are 3 men over the age of 18, or three women over the age of 18) and she was alone. We told her that we would come back in 30 minutes with another person. It was very intense I feel, because all the men in the ward usually can't come out with us until the nighttime due to work schedules. So we prayed to God for help to find someone so we could teach Carmen, well 15 minutes later we got a member after trying and running around! It was awesome, it was a recent convert Bryan, who just happened to be home! Cool! We trekked on back to the house were Carmen lived and it was awesome. We started to teach her and we felt inspired to ask why she let us in and why did she want to read the pamphlet, well she told us a cool story...she is from Costa Rica but moved here when she was 20, she is now over 75. When she was 19 she was hit by a car in Costa Rica and for 6 months could not walk or move her legs. One morning she saw two men with white shirts and ties on (missionaries) pass her porch, and she yelled unto them through the window. They came up to talk to her, she asked for a prayer, they did so and then the next day returned and offered a blessing of health, they told her according to her faith she would walk. Well after the blessing, 2 days later, she could walk back to FULL recovery. 100% back to normal, she said from that point on I walked with those boys to church every Sunday until I moved here. Well, we also found out that that year she was baptized, but when moving here..she forgot about it all and got caught up in the world and things, we are trying to find her records from then to see what we can do! The Lord truly never forgets about his children!

This week was also a  BIG change in our ward, we now have a brand new Obispado and all new presidents of the ward, it's a complete change. All the members that live out of the area will slowly be needing to move to their own wards, so it'll be a slow but sure process. It was an interesting meeting! The old Obispo was an Obispo for 8 years, (that will be you dad).

It's kind of ironic because we took the new bishop out with us last week a couple of times, and now he is called! He is a boss and we are all really excited to work with him!

Also I am trying to learn to make as many cool dishes or Hispanic food, I already learned emapanadas y tambie erepas! So cool and cool toquitos! So if anyone wants to send me cool simple recipes, cool!! haha

I love you all fam! Have a good week!

Elder Schooff

May 12, 2014 - The Mom is the Best calling ever

Hello All, 

This week was so awesome, and we had so many fantastic experiences! I truly love to serve the Lord. I have just learned to LOVE doing the nitty-gritty stuff, I love to just do missionary work. I'm grateful for God to help me. 

This week we did a lot to help out the ward, there are some BIG changes coming up, the ward is a pretty big ward honestly, but soon it'll probably be a Branch, next week all of our Bishopric and young mens quorum leaders are getting released. So gnarly and there have been tons of changes to the leadership. 85% of the ward lives out of the ward boundaries, of what we have heard. Our Stake President is coming this next Sunday to talk to the ward and see what we will do, it'll be interesting. I love this ward. And the members, they are like family to me, I'm so grateful. The Lord works through keys and we must live within those keys to receive the maximum possible help! 

So this week there was a beautiful fiesta for the Mothers in the ward and us, the Elders, sang a song and it was very powerful. I felt mom there right with me! 

I went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders this week too, it was great I learned a lot, we had some good times and fun lessons. 


I love the district that I am in, and I love to serve these elders. They are the best. We are super unified, so this week for District Meeting we are all going to eat A jabenero pepper! Should be fun, I'll take pics. It's awesome. We all wear the same colored tie every week and then do something fun to unite ourselves mas! Cool! 


So I told some members about the ghost pepper sauce and Mike eating one, now everyone is buying them in the ward and Elder Beyer (my comp) and Elder Beck (my Zl) are going to eat them, we are have been practicing a lot lately. We bought the ghost pepper sauce, haha it's so funny. That stuff is hot! 


Well, as you all know yesterday was Mother's Day, it truly I think was one, if not the best one I have ever had. We started out by calling y'all in the morning to tell you what was going down. That was fun, Ash y Kait, your reactions when I called were hilarious! So funny, well then we went to church and it was good, some good Mother's Day programs with the youth singing, I love the Spanish ward! Maybe  I'll go to one after my mission?? 

Well we asked some members for their computers to borrow and they were more than willing, and it was an interesting experience...haha so funny, we go to this one members house, and we is so sweet, he pulls out his laptop and then this black box, jumper cables and a charger, he says, "Elderes, la pila no sirve, entonses hay que prenderlo con fureza!!" haha he had to jump start the computer to start it!We google chatted with y'all at the familia romeros house, I LOVE LOVE that family! They are so nice to us, and I got to talk to all of y'all! That was such a good experience. After I was done talking with y'all, we switched with the others elders and then we had a very powerful lesson with the family. It was so spiritual and some of the most memorable moments of my mission.


We all were sitting at the table, (there was about 12 of us,) and then i wanted to do what we do at home, when we go in a circle and say something we are grateful for, but this time bout our mothers. and then a favorite memory! the spirit came in so strong, and we were all crying and laughing and truly the Spirit of God was with us in that room. I love my mission.


I have seen a great change in me, I just love to serve God and his children, I am grateful for my family too. Ash y Kait y'all are the best sisters I could ask for, and Dad I love you so much. Becky thank you for being there through thick and thin you are so amazing. Thank you family! I love you so much! Until again! 

We talked about after that, mothers and mothers in the Book of Mormon and how a mother's words are like gold to a child if they are taken and applied in life, like the 2000 warriors of Helaman said, "And they rehearsed  unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it." We should do so as well. 

Until next time,
Love y'all
Elder Schooff

May 5, 2014 - Cinco de Mayo!

Hola! 

Well this week was fun and it's been going, it's crazy how HOT it is here, when we leave in the morning, it's usually like 102 outside...not a big deal just feels like I'm in a oven, that's all! haha

We did a lot this week, I started out with an exchange on Mon to Tues. Super good exchange, we implemented the faith to find and boom we had a miracle lesson with a really cool new investigator in that area. haha Cool! 

Wednesday night we went over to the Romero's house and Hermana let US cook, it was sick, so she taught all these cool Hispanic dishes and then we ate some crazy hawt sauce and I wanted to die, so then I committed my companion to eat a ghost pepper, (the 9th hottest pepper in the world) he and my ZL said yes, so yeah, the peppers are on their way via internet! I'm excited to watch them do it...haha. 

We have had some great success with our investigators Salva and Fila, they are the sweetest people ever... so humble and so nice, with a TRUE desire to be better and follow Christ. I love them, this week we taught them all about Fasting and how it can get us closer to God. And how if we pray and fast with a purpose we will recive an answer to our life trials or whatever it may be. They have some rough things they are going through so it was super important that they showed their faith and fasted. We focused hard on them and taught them a lot, even the English word of fasting, (Fila goes to our English classes haha) so they came to church on Sunday and she just LOVED the testimonies, crying and everything, it was very powerful to see, they are both awesome.

My new "goal" to say or study or whatever, is How to Have a True Change of Heart. Like President Utchdorf speaks about, we have to have the desire and then do it, so I have that desire, now I am trying to figure it out! I have already gotten so many answers to it. As it says in Alma:

And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a ^achangeof heart, and if ye have felt to sing the ^bsongof redeeming love, I would ask, ^ccan ye feel so now?

So cool, it's true, can we take his questions and answer it truly? It's awesome. 

The Lord blesses us so much! 

Last night was the departig firside and it was great! It's so crazy to see all these elders leave every transfer, many of my converts were there too and all the members from my old areas, so cool to see, I love them all! I LOVED Cyprus, that place was like my home...just saying.

Well family have a great week! I'll talk to y'all what in like 6 days???? 

Elder Schooff