Working Hard!

This week was an awesome week as a missionary. My comp and I have been working hard to constantly find new investigators and we have actually had a lot of success working with the lists of less actives. However, the best part of this week was that we set 6 baptismal goals with investigators, and all of them came to church on sunday and stayed the three hours! And were participating!

The one little catch about the church here in Mexico is that every time you go, someone says some weird doctrine or apostate comment in their talks that have nothing to do with the topic. This week one of the speakers went off about not eating meat, which made all of the investigators look at us with worried looks. So this week we will have to repair the damage from church.

 The class of Gospel principles in also pretty interesting because the teacher is a convert of about 5 months and is an awesome convert.... but because the topics in the class right now are about the spirit world, the millennium and deep doctrine topics like that, the class gets way out of hand. There is a lot of false doctrine and strange comments that happen. But the good part about that class is that we can step in and control the discussion a little bit to help the investigators. But in the end, yesterday was a successful day at church. My comp and I don't have changes so we will be working together another cycle and we hope to have quite a few baptisms. Thanks for everything Mom and tell the family I say hi. 

Elder Shumway

Grandpa Shumway & Abuela

I had a surprise visit from Grandpa Shumway and Abuela. After hearing the news about Grandma Clark, they were worried about me.

Isaiah 52:7

7 How beautiful upon the mountains
Are the feet of him who brings good news,
Who proclaims peace,
Who brings glad tidings of good things,
Who proclaims salvation,
Who says to Zion,
“Your God reigns!”

My Mission Scripture

Isaiah 28:20 pretty well sums up my mission:

"The bed is too short on which to stretch out, And the blanket is too small to wrap oneself in."

A Great Week!

Hola Mom!
 This week has been one of the best of my mission, with new shirts, socks and shoes it is a LOT easier to work! We baptized this week, and had a lot of investigators at church. I am actually very satisfied right now with my mission and my life. You really don't have to send me anything. The shoes were enough. I have everything I could need.
 Tomorrow are the transfers and I will be leaving my area. I only had one cycle here and it is agreat ward, but I am excited for another change in my mission. I will let you know where I am next week.

 Gracias y te amo. Elder Shumway

Hot Water Anyone?

Hola Mama! General Conference this week was pretty awesome wasn’t it! Ponderize in Spanish is meditizar. (I was also wondering what it was in English.) Meditizar is the combination of Meditate, Meditar and Memorize, Memorizar. Right now I am about to teach in the zone meeting about studying and this Meditizar thing.

I received both packages yesterday with the new shoes and shirts. Thank you very much. I love you! Today is the first time in 6 months that I have not walked in shoes that are too small for me, or with my feet touching the rocks through the holes in my shoes! I put the shoes on last night and they fit perfectly.

Also mom, I just want to say thank you for everything you do. After the talk by Jeffery R Holland, “Behold Thy Mother,”  I felt homesick for the first time in my mission. Well not homesick, but I felt like I should tell you thanks for being my Mom. I love you and appreciate everything you do for me!

This week some old Catholic guy on the street asked me if I was one of the sons of Jose Smith. I thought it was pretty funny! The old guy just wanted to tell us that our church is false and the Book of Mormon would be a good Walt Disney movie. But hey the bible has also produced some good movies of Noah and Moses!

Last week someone broke into the church and stole the TV from the sec office and the stove from the kitchen! We had a baptism on Sunday, and in order to heat up the water we use a gas powered boiler. The stove also uses gas and the robbers broke the gas pipe when they stole it so we couldn't heat up the water! The baptism was for a little girl and I did not want to baptize her in cold water, so I ran home during church with my comps and we brought 2 extension cords and 3 clothes irons to heat up the water. Sadly the irons over powered the cords and they started to melt so we just put one of the irons in the water, but it didn’t heat up the water fast enough. So we baptized in cold water!

Pues gracias for everything! Tell Jojo thanks for the letters and that I will start writing her back.

Elder Shumway

A Giant

A little while ago I had to go to the Southern part of the city to renew my green card and visa in order to stay here in Mexico. While we were in the metro on our way back home, we ran into the famous piano stairs of Mexico. They are stairs painted like a piano, and when you step on each stair it actually makes the sound of that note! It was awesome and fun to play on for a minute. (Listen to them on YouTube!)

 Sometimes I feel like I am in a movie because there are always riot police in the metro in the mornings that form lines for crowd control. It looks pretty scary. Sometimes with so many people trying to get on the Metro, it looks like a cow herding factory. 

There is this funny little girl who lives in an apartment building that we teach at. Every time we walk in, she is playing at the door. When she sees me she always says, "Grandote!" Which means giant. Then she looks at my comp and says in a cute voice, "Chiquito" or little one. So my comp and I are now known as the giant and the little guy.

 Sadly, I had my camera stolen this week. Tell Danielle thanks for buying it for me, but I won't worry about buying a new one. There isn't very much to take pictures of here in the City. Other than that, every thing is great. Tell the family I say hi. 

Love Elder Shumway