HOLES

Area:  Independence, Missouri
Companion:  Elder Thompson

Hello Family!!

 

This week has been great!  It's kind of weird that all the missionaries from our ward are starting to come home.  I thought I had so long to wait before I went out but oh how the time flies!!  Yeah, we store our bikes in the apartment, which is nice.  We have a pretty big apartment compared to most other missionaries.  We have the car for two weeks right now and then one week on bikes.  But that may change soon.   Thats pretty sweet that the cabin has wifi now.  Are you going to be having Christmas Eve up there?   Hope AFC is going great.  I always love the Christmas concert, probably my favorite one out of all of them.  :)  I'm working on a cousins gift for Autumn.  I'll see what I can find today for her.  Hows Max?

Well, training is going so great!   I'm learning so much, more than when I was being trained I think!  As I told dad in his email, when you have to train someone from the very nubs you really learn every detail.  Having to take the lead in almost every situation is kind of hard but it keeps me going, motivated, and learning!  Elder Thompson is doing great and is learning.  It is sometimes hard to keep him going because those first couple weeks you just don't know what you are doing and are basically just a tag along.  So I've been trying to include him in every situation.  It was really weird to go from one day being trained, to the next day training. 

Our area is doing so great right now.  I feel like it is starting to bloom maybe because I'm putting in more effort and really loosing myself in the work.  It has made a big difference and continues to be.  We had one of our investigators bring a neighbor kid (Cody 13 years old) to church with him two weeks ago.  Now he and his little brother (Jayden 8 years old) are on date to be baptized by the end of the month!!  We may have to push it back into the beginning of January, but either way I'm happy with their progress and their desire, it is so pure!  Now we just have to get their grandparents to say yes.  It seems like there is always one person with all the power to make or break someone progressing.  Our hopes are high for these two!

We had a pretty interesting appointment this week.  We went to a house that a potential investigator lives at.  We have been trying this house for 13 weeks and nothing has happened but this night he answered.  The guy is NUTS!  He let us in and was really nice and calm when we first got there, but about 5 minutes later he started preaching to us for about 2 hours!  We couldn't interject or anything.  I don't mean just talking, but up out of his seat basically yelling false doctrine and all the stuff that is in the book of Revelations for 2 hours!  I was just sitting their trying to pray and be in contact with the Holy Ghost to know what to do or say.  I was prompted to just stand up and leave.  So, I stood up and Elder Thompson stood up right after me and we just walked out the front door.  This guy didn't know what to say and we told him we would come back if he would read the Book of Mormon.  So we probably won't ever go back there...

Last night as I was sitting in my study chair, I was thinking about what was holding back some of our investigators.  I thought of the movie Holes.  What was the reason for them digging the hole?  "To build character!  To gain experience!" As Mr. Sir would have said.  So later on in the movie, Stanly gets into trouble because Zero was digging his holes for him and he wasn't building character.  Well, those holes are the same for everyone.  They build experience.  Those holes in life are all the hard times, decisions, and trials we all go through in life and no one can do them for us.  I know that the individual problems and struggles our investigators have they have to deal with, and as they realize what the Gospel will do to help them through that, they realize that they don't have to do it alone. 

Just my thoughts for the week!

I love you all so much! 

Elder Shoemaker