Week 30 - No Transfer for This Companionship

  I was anxious to read Elder Schaff's email and find out if he was transferred, he has been in his first area since September 28th. However, there were no changes made for he or Elder Lopez, so they will continue to serve together in Echo 2. After another six weeks go by, he will end up being there for a minimum of 7 calendar months! Kind of unusual, but the Lord must know where they are needed, so we will pray that they can find more people to teach and be able to build up their teaching pool again, as many people had moved or had stopped meeting for appointments. Hayden did not write much to my email address this week, so I will try to find some lines that he sent to his Dad. This is all that I received-

  "I was not transferred!!! Echo 2 for the 5th transfer!!! Apparently my work is not yet finished, so I'm going to be working harder than ever before now!"

  "I'm going to figure out the photos and expect to send some either next week or the week after that. I have been taking them, but not a ton, because recently 2 missionaries got robbed and their cameras and wallets were stolen.... so I've kept the camera in the apartment, not the car. I am still with Elder Lopez, so we're going to try to really take it to Echo this transfer. Elder Del Carmen got transferred though, so we will have one new Elder in Echo as a result!"

  "Use most of the email I sent to dad as the weekly blog post. The picture that hopefully gets to you, forwarded from Elder Lopez, is our "special-opps-missionary" companion. Basically, the Fresno North Stake did an activity in which the Stake President received permission to ordain a bunch of youth to be full-time missionaries for the weekend. Everyone in Fresno Zone had one of these youth with them for the weekend. We taught him what we knew and worked some wonders!!!!

Elder Schaff, Special Ops Youth Missionary, and Elder Lopez

See ya next week! Good luck my family!"

--Elder Schaff  

This is some of what he sent to his Dad's email address, apparently, they were having a discussion about, why is life so hard at times and why do we have so many trials? This was a topic that had come up at a Stake Youth Discussion the night before and Michael was telling Hayden about it. Hayden responded with-

  "I also found a similar scripture, Doctrine & Covenants 136:31. If we do not have trials, how will we ever decide to build the character to become like Christ as we strive to follow His example? I have learned very many spiritual things this week. I now sympathize with Mormon or Jarom when they would write things like, "not even an hundreth part of all the teachings can be written in this book." (The Book of Mormon) When you have time pressure it's hard to get it all down! Fortunately, I have everything down in notebooks and journals.

  This week President Clark had us read a talk from President Ezra Taft Benson. It was called "Beware of Pride." And well, I thought it might be expedient that all the members of the family read that talk. It will benefit everyone (maybe not Maura if she doesn't comprehend it....) But seriously, will you do that? I promise it will bless you.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1989/04/beware-of-pride?lang=eng

  President just sent to us that we need to "let the mission go through us, not let ourselves go through the mission," meaning that we have to be learning from this, not just doing the motions and rejoicing when we go home because we can do whatever we want to do again. Well that really hit me, because I really do love this, but sometimes those thoughts of taking naps or playing video games enter my mind. It simply isn't the time.

  So now I'm trying to become more. I'm trying to be more disciplined. I'm trying to be more humble. And the blessings are indeed coming. And it's miraculous. I'm becoming transformed. The other day I sang "I Stand All Amazed" in the car when it came on and broke down crying. The gospel is astounding, and sometimes we don't use it and life overcomes us. I think that was something that was always lacking in my personal piece of the family life before the mission. It wasn't anyone else's fault but mine, but I simply didn't understand my purpose of becoming more like Christ and preparing for exaltation. I didn't really apply the gospel. I just let it make me different from the kids in high school doing drugs and failing classes. But now it's so much more, and it's something jaw-dropping, immense, and incomprehensible, that the thing that was always a part of us can suddenly become so much more.

  And then I think of all the people that don't serve missions or haven't served yet. Where do they gain this kind of knowledge? When does the gospel hit them hard like this? I only mention that hoping that we realize that the gospel has a higher plane many neglect, but all have to learn to jump there one way or another. For me it's this mission. For others it's probably some other experience... but here I am writing with all the awe I feel this week.

  So that's what's going through me Dad! We found 6 investigators this week, and we're reactivating some less-actives. Hopefully we'll get some of our investigators to baptism, because we have about 7 that are set for baptism in April!

  I'd also like to...trademark? How do you say...oh, I think the word is "coin" a phrase? "To rejoice is a choice!"

Learned from Proverbs 15:13,15.

  Please know I always look up to you Dad and I'm always very grateful for the foundation you have laid for my life.

--Elder Schaff