Area: Kearney, Missouri
Companion: Elder Anderton
Wowee! What a great week it has been. A stress filled one, but
when there is stress that means someone is moving along in the gospel!
Thank
you so much for the box you sent me! It was filled with a bunch of
good stuff! Thanks Tanner for the military set of scriptures too, it's
like you read my mind when I asked for a set. I was pretty excited to
see those when I opened it up. Also thanks Mom for the completed William Holmes Walker journal! That thing is so sweet! I'm going to have to make some time
to read it all. Also thanks Grandma and Grandpa Walker and Shoemaker
for getting those oils and BOM for me! I really appreciate it! I think
I'll have to think about what I'm going to have engraved on the front
of the BOM. Remind me next week. I may just have them engraved when I
get back too. :)
So, we finally got iPads!
They have been a huge blessing to us for studies, teaching, and
learning. They really don't make missionary work all that different,
but this is just another tool to use to help our investigators progress
along. With the iPads we can now read emails every day!!! I can still
only send them on Monday, but I can read them every day.
With
being a Zone Leader comes more responsibility. At the beginning of
every month we have what is called MLC (mission leadership conference)
where we receive trainings from the AP's, mission president, and his
wife and a few others. It is then our job to relay that message back to
our zone in zone training. So this week we had our first zone
training! Usually Elder Anderton and I would do it together, but they
wanted us to go into districts so people would be more open with
their comments. This training was on iPads, but not in the way that
you would think. I thought it was going to be on how to use them and
what not but it wasn't. That was probably about 20 minutes of the 5
hours! They talked about how this is a tool to use and if used
correctly will bring about great miracles. They also mentioned how our
testimony of Jesus Christ will decide on how we use them and if we use
them properly. Based on our commitment to His work would determine how
well we use the iPads. It was great!
There
has been some crazy flooding up here this week! I have some pictures
I'll have to send you when I get to a computer. We have been doing a
lot of basement "clean out" over here. The water table is so high it
doesn't take much to flood. One day it took us almost 2 hours to get to
one of the towns because all the bridges were washed over.
Lindsey Stirling had a fireside over here on Wednesday.
We going to go but decided not to. A member in our ward knows her
really well so she has an "in". Josh, she is still available!
(Haha!).
I sent you a birthday card Mom so I hope you get it before you leave for Cuzins Kamp! I sent it last Thursday. :).
You will have to keep me update on Cuzins Kamp this week since I can read emails every day! :).
We had a "mini missionary" this week for 3 days which was cool. His name was Brother Evanson. We had him from Friday
to Sunday. It was a cool experience to see him progress throughout the
days we had him and the encouragement we could give him. I wish I
would have been able to do that! It would have been cool to see what
missionary life/work is like.
I have some funny pictures on some critter we found this week to send to you!
Alrighty,
we had the craziest miracle happened this week! We went over to
Kristin's house to talk to her about fasting and she was excited to
try! We came back 3 days later and she told us she tried the "fasting
thing" and that it worked! We didn't even ask her to. She is the most
prepared lady I've ever met. She came to church and paid her fast
offerings and also fasted again. She's amazing! We are going to go to
the visitors center with her tomorrow and confirm her baptismal date. It will be either this Saturday or next Saturday.
Dillon
is doing alright. He is a super busy guy with school and work so it is
hard to catch him. But he is progressing along and we will probably
bump his baptismal date back a couple weeks. It is pretty cool, Dillon
has 3 family members in our ward which is crazy. So he has some good
fellowship already.
Timothy is doing well. Not
sure on his baptismal date either. He is super prepared as well. He
has some of the most sincere question. He has a very good scripture
base too which is nice!
At fast and testimony
meeting we had two members testify of lessons that we had taught them and the impact we had on their life. That was really cool to not only
see some of the fruit of our labors (which we don't get to see too much)
and also to get the ward pumped about missionary work!
Elder Clarke of the 70 all mission conference notes (from last week):
- Are you going through the mission, or is the mission going through you?
-
In everything we do we need to act, commit, and then change. Don't
ever leave church without something you are going to Change that week
- if you can master goal setting, you will be 3x more successful in all aspects of life
-
"statistics show that 100% of you elder sitting in this room have
looked at pornography and 30% of you sisters have. The average Age that
someone looks at pornography is 8. Are you going to protect your
kids?"
- no time for good or better, only time for the best!
- the person who cares about other people than themselves is a happy person
-
"if you don't like missionary work you won't like the spirit world! If
you don't like the 3 hour block of church, you won't like the
millennium!
- God doesn't create dummies, we are as capable as we want to be! (Favorite! Reminds me of something grandpa Walker would say)
- no one likes a complainer
- marrying a complainer is pergitory
- always under promise and over deliver
- God just spent two years getting you "weird" so don't go home and become "normal"
- if you want to feel like you do on a mission go and care for the orphans, widows, lambs, sheep, and poor!
Thank you family!
Love you all so much
Elder Shoemaker
Cute bunny at the Johnson's house found on their herb farm
Found this snapping turtle on one of the country roads in our area. There are turtles everywhere! {his face is the BEST!}
Gotcha little Froggy! The lady in the house behind us yelled at us saying she
was going to call the cops right after this photo. Crazy old people!
Two of the coolest kids in the ward! The Johnson's kids
Our "Mini Missionary!"
Pictures of the flooding......
