Week 29 - Ready for a Change

  This last weekend was very busy for all of us, so I wrote a long email updating Elder Schaff on all of the events. His sister, Sydney, was able to sit in the audience during the Face to Face youth event in Palmyra, NY with President Eyring and Elder Holland. It was a live worldwide broadcast for the youth of our church, and many of the youth in our ward and stake, that Hayden knows personally, were able to participate. His opening line this week is referring to this event. I also asked about his next possible transfer date since he has been serving in Echo for over five months now.

  "Wow, that must have been an incredible experience for those youth to go to that face to face event. The next transfer date is the 14th of March. We get the transfer call on Saturday night. I am honestly hoping for a change, as I am feeling a little burned out. This week was a tough week, it ended well, but Tues - Thurs were bitter and painful. Nonetheless, we helped some people progress, and by the end of the week we were alright. It seems that every week we have people that are looking good and then, something happens. Familia "L" are moving, so that's unfortunate. I counted it up, if things had gone better this transfer, we could have been set for 9 baptisms. But it's just been looking really good for the future, and faded further into the distance, repeat, repeat.

   I still have faith that we can work some magic here, but that pressing question of, when will the baptisms come, is the dilemma. I've learned a lot of spiritual lessons here, so maybe this is all a warm-up for the bigger show. President says I have great potential and just need to press forward. My prayer is that I live up to that potential! Unless we meet someone who has already gone to church twice this week and is living the commandments, we won't be baptizing in this area this transfer. So, all I can do is make it better. I've worked really hard on the area book....

  This letter seems a bit depressing, but fear not! I'm feeling very determined still! The Holy Ghost was teaching me this weekend!

--Elder Schaff 

 ( At this point, I wrote him a few lines of encouragement, and reminded him that his cousin had difficult times while serving in Brazil, but years later is still hearing about the people progressing that he taught at one time, to this, Hayden responded...)

  "I know, like I said, I just couldn't get the letter to turn out positive- ha ha. But I have seen this area progress significantly, so I believe I've done what I was supposed to do so far. This week, Azucena decided she is going to try to do everything she can to get a job that is Mon - Fri. That was another big shock because we thought she was just going to sit and give up because she had work on Sunday. I have in fact, remembered many times cousin David's words as I've made 50+ teaching records that have my name all over them. Most of them are now former investigators, but those are the footprints of my work. It's going to be a good week upcoming!

  We had a few investigators call us last week and say "Don't come back, you're wasting my time," so that was why it was challenging. But that's part of the experience. I wrote a lot in my journal about what I learned from it. I just don't have time to record it all here. I've got to write a letter to Maura now! I promised her."

--Elder Schaff