Monday, July 15, 2013

Sullana! The land of sewage water... Email from June 10, 2013

Haha, maybe that´s kinda a bad title to this email...but that´s really one of the first things you notice when you get here! They don´t have plumbing. Their sewage system is horrible and in a lot of the streets it´s just a big black river that smells SUPER bad. Welcome to Sullana. :)

When I got the change to Sullana, I was super suprised! Elder Woodburn guessed our changes, which was funny. I´m now with Elder Vargas! He was my DL in Tacala and I am SUPER excited to be with him. It´s a great zone, and the largest in the mission with 14 companionships! Only one of them are sisters, and they´re the training sisters of the mission! For those of you who don´t know what that is, basically they´re like the AP´s for the sisters in that they´re always doing work visits and training the sisters, something us elders can´t do, obviously. :)

On Wednesday, we had the Leadership council meeting. It was AWESOME! The coolest part was that Elder Waddell came again! He talked to us a lot about the mission and some of the goals that we had. Lately, we haven´t been doing very well. The number of baptisms has dropped dramatically lately. He told us in very clear terms, the number of baptisms WILL NOT continue to decline. We have to turn this around NOW. It was a very spiritual meeting, but it really made me recognize that I am responsible. President and Elder Waddell both told us that as Zone Leaders, we control the mission. If baptisms are going to go up, it will be because of US.

Gotta love the pressure. :)

However, this week has been good! In our zone, we had 5 baptisms! I´m proud of that, especially of Elder Knudson. He´s super great, from Utah, and he baptised four of the 5!

As for the rest of the week, Elder Vargas and I have worked hard. The area here really does remind me of Pampa Grande, one of my other areas. The people here are a bit more hardened than Piura. We tried super hard to find some new investigators and we may have found some good students to teach, we´ll see.

One of the things I wanted to share with you all is my love for the Book of Mormon. Honestly, I have learned to LOVE it. It is my source of inspiration. In Preach My Gospel, every missionaries bestest friend in the whole wide world, (second only to the Holy Ghost) there´s a part that talks about Questions of the Soul. I have learned how to identify those questions in my investigators, and in my personal studies I´ve searched for the answers, mainly sticking to the Book of Mormon.

THANK YOU Mom and Dad for reading and talking to us about the Book of Mormon. I am blessed with that knowledge because now I can recall the stories and think, ´maybe Ammon´s experience could help that investigator.´ Or...´maybe the words of Jacob when he was contending with Sherem could help her...´ Seriously, it´s been amazing that as I begin thinking that way, God reveals the answer to me.

The Book of Mormon can answer ANY QUESTION IN THE WORLD. Don´t believe me? Try me, I dare ya. :) Send me a question and I´ll send you what I found out!

Anyway...it´s been a great couple of days here in Sullana. The ward here is great! The bishop is a clown! Literally!! Haha, his family is part of a company here. The other leaders seem to be really motivated by the missionary work, but are struggling with their home teaching and other things. Hopefully we can inspire them as well!

This week will be busy. We´re going to do two work visits and we´ve also got to really find someone to baptise! We need to give the example here in the zone. I know that someone is out there just waiting for us to find them. We´re going to work super hard in order to do it. :)

Well, I hope all is well with you! Take care of yourselves and please remember what a blessing the Book of Mormon is for us. Those men spent so many countless hours writing...and most of their writings didn´t even make it into the final draft! I think that we can show them a bit of respect by spending a few minutes every day appreciating what they have done.

Love you all!
Elder Schofield



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