September 3, 2013

September 3, 2013

So to start, I'll just attach my letter to President Calderwood,
This week was an interesting one. I think I learned a lot of things in a lot of different ways. First off, I learned an incredible amount on Wednesday, from my personal study as well as Zone Conference. I have a lot of new understanding as well as reinforced understanding of charity now. I realize much more that I really need to lose myself more in the needs of others. That was probably the largest realization of the week. Elder Wright and I are working well together still, but I realized that I have forgotten to serve him, and as a result our relationship hasn't been improving as constantly. I need to serve him a lot more, and always be engaged in the needs of others. I think that all that I have learned or need to improve on right now boils down to that. Losing myself more in the service of others; in the service of the Lord.
This week we were continually praying to just have two investigators attend sacrament meeting. Our numbers say that we didn't, but I still know that the Lord answered our many prayers. We had a health fair on Saturday, and a couple of the people that participated in the presentations came on Sunday. One of them said that they felt really good when they walked in the church Saturday, and wanted to come back. Then on Monday we had a labor day picnic, and they were there again! They clearly have interest, and see the goodness in the church. So even though they weren't necessarily our investigators there, they were there investigating the Lord. I'm pretty happy with that.
Elder Wright keeps on working very hard, and I'm kept on my toes making sure that I'm doing my best. I'm mostly just excited to actually remember to serve him this week and see how much closer we can get.
Thanks so much for teaching us all about charity, and losing ourselves. I needed it, and it will bless me a lot. Thanks for the District, Zone, and members here in Flushing. I'm glad to be a member missionary here. It's all very excellent.
I'm also extremely glad to be able to write these emails every week. They help me collect and clarify and focus my learning; and I am really excited to apply it all and see what happens next!
I love you so much, President, through your leadership and inspiration I have gained so much understanding. I am Forever Changing!

Elder Schenk

Alright. So I guess, according to your responses to my emails, I seemed a little bit down last week. It must have been pretty bad, because I got various emails of encouragement. I know that I was a little down, due to a few different things. Then after doing my shopping I was even worse. Somehow neither of my cards were working, I guess I had a lot less on my mission card than I thought, so I had to only get a couple of things instead of more food like I wanted. I was pretty weighed down. But then (by the tender mercies of God) we had a zone activity and played kickball and flicker football (ultimate frisbee, but you just throw a football). Kickball is a good refresher because it's both soccer AND baseball, plus they had little ceasars pizza there (don't tell anyone, but I really don't think this "famous" new york pizza is very special. I think the tomato sauce tastes different but that's it. it tastes more like tomato soup. little cesars is better than the fancy stuff here I think) so I was feeling pretty good by the time the activity got over. But playing flicker football was weird because while playing ultimate frisbee I'm usually one of the best, and it's very easy for me. But you don't throw a football like you do a frisbee. So it was a new challenge. I recognized how a lot of people must feel more.

So anyway by this time I felt substantially better.

We also had a really good lesson with our investigator Virgen this week. Before, our visits were more general, getting to know you, questions and answers type things. Here we taught the Restoration fully, and I feel like they understood and accepted it well (they means her daughter and another friend who visits their house a lot, but he lives in another part of town). We are excited to keep teaching them.

Since yesterday was our preparation day, I can tell you what we did! I guess actually we didn't do that much. we went shopping and looked outside the mall in horror as we saw quite the rainstorm. but we made it home alright, and only one of the cardboard boxes had to be thrown away from water damage. I got a picture of it, as well as an excellent breakfast of pancakes that I made (hungry jack just add water mix is nice) and I added instant breakfast to make chocolate pancakes!

I'm running low on time.

Thanks so much for all your love and support! I'm excited for the week and for more work to happen!

also, some breaking news.

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get ready

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ok

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so starting pretty soon (October I believe) we will be getting iPad minis and be using facebook, blogs, skype, etc to preach and teach and work like missionaries do! President Calderwood feels that our mission is worthy and prepared for it. It's one of the newer things missionaries are doing and our mission is one of the test ones. Each missionary will be getting their own ipad, and eventually we will get iPhones I think. They talked about this in the big broadcast a couple months ago! So I'll be seeing you soon on Facebook. My account will be the same, I'll just need to edit it so it's 100 % missionary ready. And we can use people from anywhere to teach member present lessons. So I will need all of your help in teaching people via Facebook! I just hope Andre and a couple of other friends around the world will get to do it, too. Then I can teach with them!

 Something cool I learned this week is from 1 nephi 18 (also, chapter 17 is quite good. In fact, just read the whole Book of Mormon!). Think of the mountain that Nephi goes to as the temple. The Lord will show us great things there! verses 3-4 are good.

Love you all so much! Que tengan una buena semana. Also, Diane, I have used that 7 minute workout twice (one time 2 days) and I like it. It resulted in some sore muscles. Thanks!

Much love from Nueva York,

Elder Eric Daniel Schenk