February 17, 2014

Hey Fam! 

Yes, I got the package with the Seahawks shirt. Thanks for it! I have liked having the sweater you sent, too. I wonder if Katie would be alright with you reading Eleanor the Captain Underpants books.  If not, we can just wait till I get home to read them with her. 

Have you been able to keep doing P90X in the mornings?

Elder Sua'ava and I just fished shopping at BJ's and I feel really good about it. I found some good healthy foods that are cheap like bananas and carrots, and peanuts instead of peanut butter (much cheaper - peanut butter is expensive!) But the best part of my shopping is a cereal I found. It's called Cascadian Farm and is founded in Skagit Valley, WA! It's from Sedro Woolley. It has traveled just as far as I have! I can send a picture of it.

Is Friday night the branch had a Valentines Day activity with music and food. I didn't get to dance much, we kind of had to dine and dash, but a few people saw me dancing and were blown away! I don't know if the other package has gotten here yet, no one has checked the office as far as I know.

A cool thing that happened, an investigator planning on getting baptized was at English class with us and invited everyone to church as well as a CPR activity we were doing. So one guy came with his wife. Then we invited him to the valentines day activity and he came! Then we invited them to church and they came! They aren't even investigators yet! But we will try to teach them this week. One if the hard things about the work is that people aren't very good at making time. But we are planning on meeting with them some time this week. 

This is part of my letter to President Calderwood

I've seen this week some of the great power that the Lord has given me. During part of the week I felt less of the gift of tongues, and realized how much less I could do without so much extra help from the Lord.  I also recognized how much more I need to dominate the language to teach better. I was never satisfied with being just "missionary fluent," but after teaching with Elder Padilla and having experiences with English missionaries teaching in ZTM, it illustrated to me even more how much more teaching ability I could have. I also realized how much more I can serve the Lord when I am well rested. If I don't get to bed on time, I can't really serve the Lord with all of my mind. 

Right now I am sitting on the train across from people who speak Fujinese Chinese, it makes me think about all the people in the mission who don't have missionaries in their language to teach to them. There are few opportunities for such people to learn the Gospel. And then I think of all the people who do have missionaries in their language here, but don't hear it because we can't find them, or even from our fear to speak. The world needs so many more missionaries to take the Gospel to every man. A million in the world might do the trick. But we aren't going to get that. So what the few of us do needs to be big. It needs to reach all 8 million people here, and even more than that, because there are so many nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples more. We need to have a massive wave to touch all these people. And it needs to be powerful, or they won't listen, and it needs to be personal, or they won't care. I remember the words you spake to me almost a year ago. There are broken families strewn across this city. How can we even start to get to all of them? And then the rest of the people; maybe not broken yet, but still need the Gospel. 

Thanks so much for all of your love! It's been a good first year. This morning I was thinking about how long I've been here and how many experiences I've had, and I thought for a second "it's only been a year?" 

Love you a lot! The package is pretty much ready, I will try to send it this week. Elder Sua'ava keep on saying he will send a package home, too, but then preparation day comes around and he doesn't want to do it. So I keep on having expectations that are crushed. 

Anyway, have a good week! Cuídense 

Elder Schenk

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