Week 52- Big Change for Elder Schaff's One Year Mark

  I wasn't expecting to hear too much from Elder Schaff this week. Transfers are two weeks out and he and Elder D were working hard and moving things forward, then he got a phone call on Sunday night and things changed quickly. You can read about it below.
  This week mark's Elder Schaff's hump day or one year mark. He entered the MTC last summer on August 17th. One year down and one to go! To mark the occasion, I had a tee shirt sent by Amazon, it reads, "Hump Daaay! There is a camel in the middle and below the camel it says, "Guess what day it is." I also bought a hump day shirt, so if you see me in my yellow camel tee shirt, you will know why. Here is the news from Elder Schaff-

  "Alright, bear with me, because things have gotten really crazy in the last 15 hours. 

  Last night at 10:21 pm I was writing in my journal. The phone rang. I looked at it and it said: "***President Mackay," and then I knew something crazy was about to happen. You see, any missionary knows that when his mission President calls him late at night the following may have happened: 

1) Somebody the missionary knew died. 

2) President has received revelation and wants to do something to/with you and your companion like: 

 a) assign a leadership position

 b) transfer a missionary based on some occasion.

 c) go on a team-up with you because you have important investigators! Yay!

  He then told me he intended to speak with me privately. I switched the phone off speaker and prepared for what he was going to tell me! And the result was I'm leaving Parlier/Selma tomorrow morning!!!

  I have been called to be the Mission Secretary for a time. President Mackay has decided that he wants to have youth missionaries fulfill some of the Mission Office roles instead of senior couples and see what happens as a result. I and my new companion, that I will soon meet, will be the first missionaries to do so in the CFM. (Some other missions have done this I guess.) I will be a secretary by day and a proselyting missionary by night, working some area in Fresno. 

  I really don't know what to think! Transfers are in two weeks, but because I need to be trained for 12 days to do this properly, I have to leave now! Thus, after I put the phone down last night, chaos erupted. I began packing up my things. I had to tell Elder D the news and that was really sad because our companionship will come to an end. It has been a wonderful 10 weeks that we've had together, and I've come out of it with a true friend. Until the end of the transfer, Elder D will be in a "tri-panionship" with Elders N and L until transfers come. We will get new missionaries then and there will be enough to fill the areas. 

  So that's how I'm faring. Never mind the week we had! It was pretty boring anyway. Nothing notable happened until last night.

  Elder D hit the brakes on his bike to talk to someone, but only hit the front brakes, and pulled off half of a wicked front flip. Somehow he caught himself, but a few parts flew off his chain and it's not tight anymore. A bike is no good without the chain to move the gears and then the wheels! The Zone Leaders needed us to teach an interlude at a baptism they had at 6 anyway, so we got the bikes onto the car and went to the church and gave that teaching. We returned to Parlier and continued to have the day's plans and appointments fall through. The day was getting long at that point, but Elder D and I both agreed that it had to be happening for a wise purpose of God.

  That was just it! I felt inspired to knock the door of a potential from last transfer. There didn't appear to be anyone home, but we went for it. The children of the house answered the door, but the parents were not there. A minute later, the dad arrived! He invited us in and we taught the dad and his two kids. The Holy Ghost was strong in that lesson, and we ended an arduous week with a family to teach. It was a miracle of personal revelation. The son of the family, a 13-year-old named "E", said that he was going to spend all of today reading the Book of Mormon we gave him because he wants to know if it is true. School starts tomorrow, Tuesday, for him, so that's a big sacrifice. Spending the last day of summer reading the Book of Mormon! (That's how you do it!)

  So life is good. I feel like I'm using a lot of "!"s because I have a lot of energy with the whole advent of being transferred. The Zone is also holding a sports day before our district meetings today, and we're heading over to that, maybe I'll calm down a bit there. It reminds me, the last time we did that we were playing Ultimate Frisbee and I threw the disc at the ground to serve it. It ended up being the perfect toss because it bounced up and glided right into the basketball hoop. 3 pointer!

  All is well in the California Fresno Mission. I'll tell you what Secretary training is like next week!

Pack the bags...it's back to Fresnoooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

--Love, 

Elder Schaff