Meet the Mormons Movie

Area:  Independence, Missouri
Companion:  Elder Tu'akalau

Family and Friends!!!

Yep mom everything in the box fits perfectly!

Conference was so amazing!!  I was able to watch all 5 sessions at the Stake Center and what a blessing that was.  I loved all those pictures you made mom and especially the one about the 88,000 missionaries.  I would like that one in a laminate. ;)  One of my favorite talks that was given was Lynn G. Robbins of the 70 in the Saturday morning session.  Oh man that made me thing so much of a grandpa visit!  It was almost like grandpa was giving the talk to me.  It was a great reminder on "what way do we face" and how we all need to be a Moroni in the world.  Just think if every member of the church was a Moroni, we would be unstoppable! I also loved how he said that in the world today it is so easy to lower our standards.  "Lowering the Lord's standards to the worlds is apostasy."  Pretty straight forward on what we need to watch out for.  Another one of my favorites was Jorg Klebingat of the 70 in the Saturday 3:00 session.  I loved the question that he posed at the beginning, "What thoughts would come to our mind if we had an interview with the Savior one minute from now?" 

I'm so excited for all ya'lls to see the Meet the Mormons movie!  We were able to see the whole thing in Kansas at a Stake Center over there and it is so funny, uplifting, informative, and tugs at your heart strings. It has some funny clips from South Park and The Simpsons in it which I though were great!  Don't cry to much at the end Mom! 

So we got some pretty crazy news this last week during zone training!  They are changing how missionary work is going to be approached in this mission.  We were asked to keep our lessons frequent, like every day or ever other day, and about 20 minutes so our investigator would constantly be able to feel the spirit and we could see them more often.  We were also informed that we will be getting iPads in December or January!  Woot Woot!  They also got rid of any memorization that we had to do except for our purpose and the first vision.  That is a huge change as in this mission we used to have to memorize all the lessons 30-40 minute lesson plan that is at the end of every lesson.  No more memorized lessons!  Yay for the Spirit.

This week I have learned that being an effective missionary doesn't mean you work as hard as you can until you can't work anymore.  Being an effective missionary means that you serve with all you heart, mind, might, and strength equally.  There is definitely a reason that is in Doctrine and Covenants 4. 

Oh and I was going to tell you that we found a family to teach this week!  Yay, it's been hard trying to find someone to teach.  They are the Putman family and they are solid.  The mom is a single mom and a less active of about 15 years.  She has a boyfriend who isn't a member and same with her 2 kids.  Super excited to start teaching them more.

Well that about all that I have for you this week! 

Love everyone!  Elder Shoemaker

PS- I have ONE Christmas wish.  You can get these sweet first edition copies of the Book of Mormon at the distribution center.  I would love one of those. :)  It is written like a normal book and so I am hoping that it will give me a different perspective of the Book of Mormon.