Oct 12

This week was a pretty tough week. Wednesday was probably my worst day
ever on the mission. We had three "solid" appointments and we show up
to the door and knock and no one answers the door.  For some reason we
are really opposite on the numbers, like we have one true investigator
but we have almost ten less actives we are teaching and a lot of those
people are coming back to church. It's really bitter sweet. We are
also providing a lot of service to people. Especially because in our
ward there are a lot of elderly people and they often need help.

Last Friday we helped a family install their new refrigerator. That
was a lot of work. They got really lucky with the price, they got it
for almost the third of the regular price, which was a great blessing.
That took up a lot of our day, but we were glad to do it cause we
didn't have any appointments that day.

Friday me and elder Lewis spent our day in a town called Hamburg.
We walked a lot, trying to talk to people and also visiting less
actives too. We planned to visit this less active woman who lived
about 2 miles away from where we were at the time. So we decided to
walk. But as we were walking it started raining a little and I didn't
have an umbrella. Once we got to her house it started pouring and I
got soaked. And she wasn't even home. So that was a bummer. I have a
video of us standing underneath a little shelter thingy with mailboxes
under them.

On Tuesday we spent our whole day in reading. We wanted to contact an
extremely less active man. His name was Jack and he has no teeth (lot
of people are like that around here) and he can talk your ear off. But
it's kind of funny cause he has a lisp because he has no teeth.  We
plan to go back and actually try and teach him cause he has a lot of
doctrine messed up. He hasn't been to church in over 25 years and
thats probably why. After that we went and got ice cream at a place
called dairy swirl. A young woman in our ward works there and is able
to give us free ice cream. So that's pretty sweet(literally)!

Well hope you all are doing great. Miss all of you so much. Please
pray for investigators forums please. The gospel is true and I know
that. God speed!
Elder Shumway

Mom,

My week was pretty good. Some good parts and bad parts, but over all
it's was pretty good. Nice job canning, I remember those days. And
circle k would usually be better. There's none of this out here. I'm
really sad about that cause they are so cool. But there is a gas
station called wawa. They are a gas station but they also make
sandwiches and they are usually pretty good.

Yeah I sent her a letter. I'm happy that she got it. I hoped that she
would be excited. That's crazy that Sadie is getting married! I
thought she wanted to go on a mission? When is the wedding? Where is
it? She's probably really excited. Who is she marrying? Send them my
congratulations. I probably won't be able to come. Hopefully sis slade
gets better by the time the wedding happens.

I'm in the same place with the same companion. And now Elder Lewis is
district leader. I did get that package with the home made cookies.
Thank you so much for that. I really like that new sweater.

Did you ever get a picture/text about me from an unknown number last
week? If you did can you respond? The number was from Sister Wojcicki.
She is a member in the ward and she is pretty cool. They feed us all
the time. And I think last week she took a picture re if me while I
was at her house and sent it to you and you never responded.

I had forgotten that Jeff had already left. I sent him an email a
while ago but he never responded. But I'm pretty sure he will do well.
Maybe if he responds I can give him some advic. Did Ben Steele come
home? I don't see his name in LDS tools anymore. Tanner emailed me
last week and said he did receive his call. He's been called to the
Illinois Chicago mission and he leaves Nov 11. I was so excited
went he told me that. He will be a great missionary.

Thanks for having Teryn over. He is an awesome guy and a great friend.
He emailed me and told me that he went to conference and also sent
some pictures. He actually went with that sister missionary who used
to serve in our ward and her and Teryn kind of had a "thing". But yeah
it looked like he had a great time. Make sure he goes on a mission and
make sure he is there to skype on Christmas.

Teaching actual investigators is a little slow, but ones with less
actives and recent converts are going really great. And also service
is going really great. We did some more service for the sweet older
woman in our ward (there's a lot of them) her name is sister Roland
and she had us do a some yard work. Mainly cutting away some large
bush. I really soaking wet last week. I forgot my umbrella and it
rained a whole bunch. I'll send you a video. The weather is cooling
down a lot. I hear different things from locals around here that say
that it might be a heavy or mild winter.

Ugh that's so frustrating about dad. I wish it would go away. Tell him
thanks for being such a trooper.

1: Pretty well. We are getting more and more comfortable with each
other. But we still have hardly anything in coming.
2: I used it yesterday for my fast offerings. :)
3: Haven't gotten them yet but will hopefully get them Tues or Wed.Wednesday.

Hey Lila! Thanks for the email. A break sounds really nice. Glad you
got to babysit and got paid some big bucks! Stake conference sounded
fun. Sorry you have to go back to school. But it will go by so fast.
Even though it doesn't seem like it, it will. I would love to have
some of your drawings. I got a package with the cookies in it. But
that was it. I think there's a few more of them at the mission office.
It is getting pretty cold. But what cold is to an Arizona boy is hot
to somebody out here. Thanks for following asking the dogs on walks.
You wanna know what specifically happened this week? Ok I'll tell you.
I got rained on a lot. We helped some member install their new
refrigerator. We have been teaching a lot of less actives and recent
converts not so many investigators. Wednesday was probably my worst
day in the mission. We had three appointment set up and I was really
excited but we show up to the appointments on time and we knock on the
door and nobody answers it. It is super frustrating! But yeah that's
just some things that happened.