August 25, 2014 - Lessons, Airports and The Queen Mary

Hello Family,

         this week was an overall great week, and well not too much what we expected. Man I love this area and I love my mission, crazy to think that I only have 2 more weeks until the end of the transfers and we have a LOT this next coming week.

          This week we had some really good times with the members coming out with us, I am finding that some members of the ward will do anything to come out with the missionaries, some will simply say no and will not. If you are reading this, GO out with the missionaries! It's so fun and every time we are done the member tells us they love it. We have some awesome experiences and miracles. 

        We went out with one of our favorite members this week, Hermana Carmona and we went to a formers house. Turns out that she knew our former and we picked him back up as an INV. Cool! It was a little blessing of God. 

         This week had a lot of duties to have done, I'll explain some things that I had to do. President called me on Tuesday of last week and asked if i could "help him out". There was an elder that was struggling in the mission and he wanted to, well..not be here. So Pres asked if I could take him out to lunch and talk to him. I gladly accepted, we drove across the mission and met up with the elders and we had a good talk and lunch. I hope I did my part. We will see though. That took up most of the day for Wednesday. 

         More so than that we picked up another companion this week, just for a while. President Tew, again calls us both on Saturday and asked us if we were busy. He told us for the night we would need to sleep over and some other elders apartment and take care of some elders and take one of them to the airport on Sunday morning. It was a crazy gnarly night and yeah...a lot happened. But it was good and we raced to the airport after a sleepless night and met Pres there and said goodbye to a great elder that will be missed! And we ran to get to church, with now another companion. Sunday was a whole different experience. We rushed back and get to the apartment to take a shower and change and get ready for Samoan church at 10. Yeah, I went to a Samoan church this week and I understood nothing, but I sang and said "TALOFA" a whole bunch, it was so fun! Reminded me when i didn't know Spanish. The two cultures and sooooo different, and I loved that! We went straight from our Samoan ward to the Spanish and it was sooooo fun! Like how cool is the mission! No where else can you just do that, I remember I got a letter from the mission before I arrived and they said, "This mission is known for being very multi-culture and mutli-religious." So true! haha I love it! 

      Our good friend Chico again came to church, should be on the way to get baptized next week, we shall see. The rest of the night was so tiring and we pushed through. haha But overall it was great. We ate more food than I have my whole mission with the Samoan families and yeah. I can't explain to y'all how crazy it was being thrown into that culture! haha So cool! But yeah that was all yesterday and I am grateful to know that President could trust with us with our task we had at hand. I love this gospel and the blessing and happiness it brings. 

       Today, we knew we wanted to make a fun Pday for the other elder that will be with us for all that he had been through, he and we needed something cool. We went to the Queen Mary Ship, apparently its super famous. All we knew is that it costs money to get on, but parking is free for 30 min and you can walk around the ship on the outside. so we went and planned on doing that. We got there and got our 30 min free parking, and as we were about to leave someone comes waving us down yelling for us, screaming ELDERS!! We walk over to her and turns out she is one of the main head-honchos there and also...a member of the church, she was Samoan member and was in the ward....we got in for free. Cool! haha It was super fun and we were there for a while! I'll send some pics! 

      Well family! I love you all so much, I'm grateful for all that you do for me and your support, have a great week!

 Elder Schooff 

August 18, 2014 - Miracles, Cigarettes and Running.

Just got my haircut from an OG gangster born y raised in Compton names Mike...no big deal.. 

Anyways! Family! How are y'all? This week was full of some good old times that I will remember forever. Cool! We are blowing up here in Strong Beach Brown Zone, the zone has done better than it has before for the last year, this place is exploding with success. Excluding one, every single goal we set....we hit, sick. That's how you get it done, we are that shot around the world! 

       

This week we started out the week with an awesome exchange with the APs, Elder Taylor is the AP, he came to my area.  He is an elder that was in my MTC district, we are very good friends and we have NEVER served around each other, ever. So we went on exchanges and it was a blast! When we got together we set goals for what we were going to do for the next 24 hours, we wanted to see some miracles. We had a booked schedule, but we wanted to find. With a packed schedule right around 7pm, and a lesson at 8pm. We looked at each other and said, "OK well we will find 2 new in the next hour." So we went out, prayed and were lead to an area that I have never been to before. But I had one old potential written down, we started walking and contacted everyone we saw. Well, we get to the house right before the potential and see 2 people sitting on the patio. We contact them and they let us sit down with them. They are sooo prepared to hear the gospel, we started to teach the the spirit, boom, just filled the room. We start asking them questions and they tell us EVERYTHING about them, how they have been searching for truth and what's the purpose of their life and what they need to do to follow God. We taught them all they needed and committed them to baptism. Cool, throughout the whole exchange we had tons of success with finding 6 new investigators. 

        

Later in the week, we got back together. We were on Bike ( I LOVE bike, I have missed using it, we wanted to be an example to the zone and try to rarely use our car, there is nothing better then getting to the grind of things on a bike in missionary work, l love it.) We got a call from Elder Brock, one our DLs, and he says he had a contact that he gave their phone number too and they live in our area and the contact-called him asking if missionaries could come by and "help him out". So we went.....that lesson was so unique. We met this man named Fernando and he really wanted to change his life...in that moment. He told us he has a problem with smoking, drinking, and well the law of chastity. We had a bold lesson with him, and asked us to give all of his cigarettes to us so we could destroy them. He was hesitant but did so, we went out the street and ripped them up. We go back two days later and he asked "forcefully" never to return and talk to him, he said he enjoyed talking to us in the moment but it is so hard to stop and he doesn't want to, so he kicked us off his property. The whole experience was so unique, you can only help someone IF they accept it and choose to go through it. Like the atonement, we have to accept it and then try to apply it. Truly, salvation does not come easy...but man is it worth it. 

      

Later in the week we went on another exchange (I feel like I am always on exchanges) and it was a great time! For the night we got to see another cool miracle. We had a member come out with us and drive us around. We had some good sets and great time, once again we had a lesson at 8 and we really wanted to find! We went out and got to work, always starting with a prayer for help. We go out and we had NOTHING all night, all was falling through and we had two people drop us and man, it was rough...at first! But like they say, after something bad happens always something better happens to you to help forget about the bad. So again we stopped and prayed to ask God where he needs us to be. We went to a potential I had written down from the area book. As we were driving there I realized the potential doesn't even live in our area....uh....it crosses the river over into another area. We get to the street it should be on and the hermano that is with us stops and says, "ah, he estado aqui en esa casa!!" He pointed at some random house and told us that he went there about 6 months earlier with some other elders and he has been wondering what was happening with her, we quickly parked and got to the house. We knocked on the door and Maricela was there, we had a powerful lesson with her and boom, got to set a baptism date with her too. It's cool to see that God leads us in so many ways. Through members and their old experiences with members. cool 

      

6 months to sexy is still going strong for us, we are working out and running more than ever, I love it and I LOVE to run in the mornings too. Cool. 

     

In all , this week was great. I love where I am at and I LOVE LB. It's the best place in the whole world. Have a great week y'all. 

ELDER SCHOOFF 

How to protect your bikes when you get a flat and have to keep them there overnight. cool.

August 11, 2014 - Compton Robbery, Samoans and Baptisms.

Ok, here we go. Another week that has just ended, man times flies way too fast. But this week was eventful and I learned a lot! So cool. We are having so much fun over here in CRAZY LBN zone. 

             

This week we started out with a good ol' exchange, y we had lots of success. I went with an elder that is in our zone that serves in the Samoan wards. In our zone we have Samoan elders, Spanish and Tongan. Cool! It's super unique to go to a new culture and see how they are. 

The Elder I was on exchanges with does missionary work a whole lot different than Spanish elders do it. Samoans are not just everywhere through out all of LB, it's pretty hard to find them. That's why PMG Working With Members is KEY to them, 100% of the baptisms they have there in that ward are member referrals. So we were going by all these members and having some awesome lessons with them. Some members could only speak Samoan so I had NO idea what I was doing. Yeah...and also I don't eat too much, especially nasty food...and if you don't eat a Samoans food they don't like you. I'm pretty sure I offended at least 10 members...haha good times. 

Going on that exchange brought me to my greeny days, how I didn't know a language and I felt so out of place, man it's cool to see yourself get better everyday! I LOVE that my mission is Spanish, I love that culture. The exchange was all around successful! 

           

Later on in the week we had a BUSY schedule. With sets, meetings and trainings to give it was gnarly. But I saw some really really cool miracles that happened along the way. 

On Thursday we had Zone meeting and it was great, we set some high goals as a Zone and man have we been on FIRE lately, everyone is so pumped up, the field is being harvested right now. 

After ZM we had weekly planning and that is always good to sit down and organize your week. And later that day we had a meeting with President Tew at 4pm, we had to drive to the mission office. 

We get there and President is running a little late talking to some other elder in a meeting, we start our meeting with him as about 4:45 or so and go till about 5:30 and try to rush home, but little do we know...traffic. So we get home at 6 or so and get a call from one of our District leaders, he tells us their bike tires were stolen over in Compton and all the parts were stripped, the only thing left were the frames locked to the pole...we told them they could borrow our bikes and loaded them up on the bike rack and ran the bikes over to them. We were about to head out to work at about 7, then we get another call from another DL. He was suuuuper sick and asked if we could do a "sick exchange" with him. So we rush to his house and I take his comp with me to go out and work at night.

At this time it is about 7:30, I knew we had not taught one single lesson that day and we had to be back in about 1 hour to swap again. But I knew the Lord would provide. We get in the car, and we pray. Praying for help of who we need to go by and teach, we knew we did not have to much time to go by tons of people. But we relied on God. When the prayer ended I thought of a potential to go by, why a potential over my INVs? I have no idea, usually I would go for daily contact of something in the night times, but I knew God was talking to us. So we went by Victor.

 

We have been by him 2 or 3 times and every time was super weak. But we had faith. We enter in the apartment complex with Cholo music booming, people smoking dope. I could barley breathe and hear.  At least I had my eyes...haha, we walk through the ghettoness and make our way to his place, knock on his door and he answered and looked super preoccupied. We asked him about his day and how he was, small talk out of the way and we try to share the message with us. Surprisingly he asked us to come in and sit down, we close the door behind us for some quietness. We sit down and start to talk, as we talk you can seen a true change in his demeanor, he sits up and starts looking more intently at us and soon asks us if we can invite his wife to sit down with us, we said CLARO QUE SI!! 

The lesson was overall awesome, it was powerful and they both loved the story of Joseph Smith. I love when people love that story, it's so true and real and the key to the difference of others from us. It was a great miracle to see that God provided what we needed, to find new INVs and to teach. We were soooo busy all day and had no time at all, but still...God Provides.

 

On another note, one of my old INVs from Cerritos got baptized on Sunday. Her name is Esme and it is a super cool story. When I was a greeny my first transfer, she was the first INV I had ever found. Over 18 months ago, y the was not to strong back then, then I left and went to Cryprus and came back and Elder Brock whitewashing. We picked her back up and worked really hard with her. But still didn't go anywhere. Well we get a call this week and then find out that we is getting baptized! She wanted Elder Brock and I to come back and baptize her. It was soooo cool. Like how cool is that!! She was the first inv I ever found! And now she is baptized, it's cool to be here for so long to see that! 

Well family I love you! I am in love this City of LB, it's so fun and ghetto and awesome. I love y'all so much and I hope you have a great day! 

Elder Schooff

We ate a pig nose in pazole 

This is lb and a lion, yup!

This is Esme! 

August 4, 2014 - Long Beach, Exchanges and Bros.

Hello all, this week has been a busy and very packed time. It was eventful for so many reasons. Leaving my old area, saying goodbye to so many people that I love and getting ready for a new area and new work and ward. 

Monday night we got to say goodbye to some more people, like my recent converts and some invs, and some cool families, it's hard to say goodbye to loved ones. I can only imagine how God felt as he had to say goodbye to us and send us here. Must be hard. 

Tuesday morning came and we got to work.  My new area is the majority of the city of paramount and parts of Compton, It's ghetto and I love that. My new companion's name is Elder Calle. He is a boss. One of the most humble people I have ever met. I KNOW I will enjoy working with him. He is brand new in the calling as a Zone Leader as well, so we are going about it together. Changing this zone for the better. We immediately met with our District Leader and asked then how the Zone has functioned in the past and we established some visions, goals and plans. We were super excited. We know as it says in the white hand book we work through our leaders, the DLs are the ones to get out there and help the other elders. 

We established a vision, the Long Beach North Zone is special we have everything in out zone that people want. Y whats even cooler is that it's all Spanish elders and Samoan serving elders too. We call ourselves the Strong Beach Brown Zone. We are unique haha, but man there is tons of unity going on. The DLs came up with the idea to call ourselves the Stripling Warriors. Yeah we are young, in leadership, in age in whatever it may be, but we can win and do anything we put our minds too, we obey with exactness. In Zone Meeting we power housed it and talked about how we need to be better than ever before. We read in Alma as we applies it to ourselves. 

21 Yea, and they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness; yea, and even according to their faith it was done unto them; and I did remember the words which they said unto me that their mothers had taught them.

27 Now this was the faith of these of whom I have spoken; they are young, and their minds are firm, and they do put their trust in God continually.

Our minds are set on God, and what he wants us to do. That meeting we had as a zone of pure elders was super spiritual and we all left ready to work. We committed to be exactly obedient. Just as the true sons of Helaman were.

There was a special spirit through the whole zone all week, everyone was texting out miracles, calling each other warrior. There was a little more kick in our step this week.  

As this week came to end, you could see our elders and how they carried the zone through. The numbers from the last week of the transfer to the first week of this one, doubled. In every aspect. So cool. We were all pumped. And the zone had done better than they had for the last 6 weeks average. So cool. They get it and I'm grateful to be learning so much from them. 

Unity...unites. I know that. haha 

Goals are achievable. and I know that. It takes dedication and determination but it's worth it. It's possible for the big goals, like zone goals or as simple as the little goals, like me and wanting to touch my toes (I'm going ham on that). Elder Calle and I wanted to take these goals and make them in all aspects of the mission. We are making our DL hold us accountable to eating healthy and working out. And it's fun! We are trying to live the law of sharing and buy food together, we are trying to show the zone that we are their friends AND leaders, not just people over them... I feel like this is going to be the moments when I stretch and learn the most. 

We had the wonderful opportunities to go on exchanges with Elder Brock and Woofinden (Elder Brock is my old comp, he is a DL up here, cool!) I was with elder Woofinden in my area, it was my 2nd day in the area. Good thing for area books. Well we stretched our faith and we knew in the first two hours on the morning we would find a new INV. We prayed, got the bikes and left the apartment at 11, we did all we could to find someone that was ready for the gospel before 1. Well, at 11:35 we contacted someone named Laura. She is a miracle. We saw her raking her lawn and we asked if we could help. She said, "Well, no. Not with raking, but there is something else, for 6 years I have seen guys like you riding bikes and preaching.  I have been waiting for you to talk to me and now finally you are here, can you help me and explain what you do, I feel like I need it.".....WOW. Um well duh!!! haha We sat down with her and taught her the whole first lesson. She LOVED it, she told us she knew it was true because of the honesty that she felt in our hearts. That was a huge compliment to me, I do know that I am being honest when I say I know the church is true. I love this gospel. Laura is so cool, we have a lesson with her tonight. As we implement faith, God pulls through. Always. 

Family I know this gospel is true. I can tell you I don't know everything, but I have desires to. That's why I love gospel. We don't need to know everything right away. We just need to trust God. 

I love you all. 

Elder Schooff