Happy Monday everybody. Sorry I've been slacking on emails, I will try
and be better. So this week has been pretty great. The best part was
on Saturday. We were instructed by Elder Lynn G Robbins of the
seventy. It was really awesome. We were able to be instructed by an
awesome teacher. He talked a lot about how the mission is preparing us
for when we go home. He said that no other university or school can
teach what we are learning in the mission field. And I agree with him.
It amazing what I've learned on the mission.

The weather sure is getting more colder. Not to excited about that.
I was looking at the weather today and it said there is a chance for
snow on Thursday. Hopefully that doesn't happen. Locals here say it's
gonna be a pretty bad winter. Hopefully it won't be.

Jon is doing great. He went to the temple a week ago and had a great
time. It was a really spiritual experience for him and for all of us.
Jon was able to be baptized for his father and his grandfather. I'm so
grateful that we are able to do these ordinances in the temple of God.
I hope I can go back often. For those of you back home consider
yourselves lucky to have temples so close to you. Out here it's a
little different. It took us a couple hours drive to get to the temple,
but it was definitely worth it. Rochelle also came to the temple and
was able to do some temple names. Jon was sustained on Sunday as the
young men's second counselor and he is really excited to have a
calling. These past few weeks he has also been passing the sacrament
which is awesome for him.

I'm so glad to be a missionary right now and I love the people that I
am with. I know the church is true, that the Book of Mormon is true
and that the priesthood is restored. I love my savior Jesus Christ.
I've grown closer to him more than ever.

Love Elder Shumway

That's ok for the letter later during the day. Was able to read it at Jon and Lori's.
Sounds like stake conference went well. I'm sure all the primary kids
singing brought a good spirit to the meeting. Sorry you had to sit in
the hard chairs.

It is getting pretty cold. The other night I busted out my electric
blanket and had a really great sleep. I stayed warm all night. What do
I think about winter coming? Well I'm ready for it I think, pretty
much just want to get it over with cause it can get super cold. But I
think I'll be fine. The colors of the trees were beautiful this week.
The leaves will soon be falling off though.

Thanks for inviting Teryn. Sounds like a delicious dinner. I forgot to
email him last week. I'll do it today. He is a great young man.
Hopefully he can get his wisdom teeth out soon. And I'm sure doctor
snell can hook him up with a deal. You gave away the couches. We have
had them for a long time. I'm sure it will free up some space. What
are you gonna do with that extra space.

I'm glad Lila does not want a snake. I don't want her to get a snake
either. I know what twitterpated is! I was being sarcastic. So she has
a little crush on a boy? I'm sure she will have fun at those dances.

Pennsylvania ditch food is food that has a lot of butter and oil and
carbs. Not very healthy for you. Lots of pasta stuff. Yep sister
Jensen goes home soon. Transfers are actually the 1st. I'm sure her
parents are excited for her. I haven't really talked to her that much.
I've never really served around her that much.

The temple was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it a lot. I think that is how
often we can go. The bad hung is we can't drive ourselves. We have to
have a member drive us which can be hard sometimes. We did baptize the
same name twice. Didn't realize it till afterwards.

Yeah please ask Terrell or Courtney about Courtney being transfered once cause I'm still
confused on that. Cause that is a long long time in one area.

Transfers are coming up soon. Don't know what's going to happen to me.
I'm probably going to stay another transfer. That would be my guess.

I think you mean David Austad. That's great he got married. Did you go
to the reception? I'm glad max gauna is doing well. I sometimes wonder how
he's doing. I did always like max. He was a good guy.

I enjoyed the messages through out the week. I would live to receive
more. Don't hesitate to send me stuff, I will get it and look at it.

I was pretty sad the blueberry hit something. I hope it can be fixed soon.

1: I do sometimes run out of time to write everyone.
2: Didn't have the opportunity to do any service this week.
3: Nothing too funny that I can think of.

Truncate or treat for the branch is  Saturday, For Halloween we
have to be inside around 6pm.

Love Elder Shumway

Hey Dad. Things are going well. Getting pretty cold. The videos were
great yesterday. Jon and Lori are so nice. Wow it was a tie huh? That
doesn't happen very much. Haven't been hearing a lot about the eagles.
Probably since I'm not very close to the city. Cubs and Indians? Never
would imagine them going to the World Series. I'm glad stake
Conference went well for all of you. Sorry you had to sit on metal
chairs. Our stake conference is coming up soon too. In the beginning
of November. Maybe the second  Sunday.

You got a new computer huh? What kind is it? I'm glad that you enjoy
your job. I'm sure glad and I'm sure the rest of the family is
grateful that you are employed. I also wish we lived closer or the job
was closer to home. Are you still driving the Altima? So Carson messed
up the bumper on the tracker huh? That's ok. I'm sure you guys will be
able to fix it. Having working vehicles are nice. I'm glad I haven't
gotten in a crash on the mission and all my cars have worked fine.
Thanks for all you do.

Love Elder Shumway

P.S. I hope my tie is long enough.

Good morning. It was a pleasant surprise for me to get this email
earlier than I usually do. I got it at the beginning of second hour.
Thank you.

So how did dinner go last night with Teryn? I haven't talked to him
for a little bit. I'll email him today and see what's going on. Thanks
for being nice to him. I'm sure he's struggling right now. I think he
really wants to get out on a mission.

Josh got a snake huh? That's pretty cool. Does Lila want a snake now
too? That's great Josh has a job. He's got a pretty good employer too.
I'm glad he is more confident now. Has put in any weight or is he
still a rail? Lori showed me the picture of you guys at Gecko. What is
360? Carson took the tracker! It is a chicken magnet!

Fall break is over now. Sounds like you all had a great break. Now
time to go back to work and school. Sounds like Lila is making a lot
of great decisions and setting some great goals. What's twitterpated?
She's excited to go to stake dances? She's crazy! And she's getting so
old.

Yep you did get many pictures of me this week. Also a video talking
about if my tie is long enough. I did enjoy going back to reading for
a little bit. I love that area. It is still my most favorite area. I
wish I could go back. I saw Sister Smith when I was down there and I
saw bro smith at our branch conference 2 sundays ago. He has a stake
calling and he was at our branch conference.

Good luck on being healthy. I've noticed it's a lot easier to be
healthier back home. Here there is a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch food.
Which means a lot of fat and a lot of carbs. I also can't go to the
gym which is super hard and there's not much to do around here as far
as exercise goes.

The temple was great! I loved being there. The temple is really
beautiful. It's interesting when you standing outside and it's loud
because of the city and then you go inside and it's totally quite and
you can't hear the city at all. I got all nine names baptized and
confirmed. Jon had a really great experience because he got baptized
for his father and grandfather. Didn't get to go around Philly after
that. We were all pretty tired so we just went home. I don't think
I'll need the names. I think I'll just send them back home. I might
keep one in case we go do a session. I sent you another female name
this morning that needs everything done I think.

Yeah Elder Ostrom and I do get along great. I'm very confused by that.
If this was her first transfer that means she would have been in the
same area for 13 months. That is almost unheard of in the mission
field. Wow she comes home super quick. I think I'm getting Colten's
letters.

Yeah the other week was very stressful. It will come to pass,
hopefully sooner than later. The missionaries that are stressing us
out are definitely leaving. I say that because one of them goes home
in about a week and the other one has been here for 6 months. I don't
know if I'll be transferred. I have mixed feeling on that. What has
happened to Noah? I have no idea. We haven't talked to them at all. We
aren't allowed. Nothing from Mason this week. He has been hired on to
be apart of the trump campaign in some way. He sent us a picture last
week that I will send you.

1: Yes we are wearing sweaters now. I am not using my electric blanket
yet. It's not cold enough for that.
2: Didn't meet anybody on the streets. Haven't done any of that
recently. Been busy doing other things.
3: Plans for this week, well the biggest plan will be Saturday
cause we are having a mission wide conference in broomall. And Elder
Lynn G Robbins of the presidency of the seventy will be coming to
speak to us.

Love Elder Shumway

On the way to the Temple to do baptisms.

At Jon and Lori's house 

Hello everybody. Sorry for the two week no show on weekly emails. I'll
try and do better. We now have wifi in our apartment so I'll be able
to email a lot more. So this last week we got some really horrible
news. Nicki who is a recent convert. She got baptized in June has
somehow gotten a hold of anti Mormon stuff and we believe she is
communicating with an organization that is against the church and now
she wants nothing to do with the church. She has also threatened that
if anybody from the church tries to contact her she will call the
police. So that was a main part of my week. I've been worrying about
her all week. We aren't sure what the course of action is now.

The good thing about this week is that Jon has returned to work today.
Really excited for him. He will be able to make more money now and
provide for his family. Yesterday at church he asked if we could give
him a blessing so he can have strength to stand up for what's right.
He says that the other truck drivers don't have the best mouths. Jon
is awesome! I'm glad I was able to be around him at this time. This
temple we are going to the temple with him. I'm really excited for
that.

Elder Ostrom and I are getting along great. We've been going on splits
quite a bit with members in the branch and it's a lot of fun. We are
able to see more people. I'm excited to be serving with him at this
time.

Thanks everybody hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Shumway

 My name is Jonathon Demeere, and my first spiritual experience in the Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple occurred on July 24th, 2016, during a special tour for investigators along with their missionaries.  I suppose a little back story on our situation would help progress my testimonies with more clarity. My wife and I had met online, through a game we both played that had a chat room that all players could communicate with each other, we began as friends, both of us going through rough times at the end of our prior relationships.  We found ourselves to be a good support system for each other, giving moral support and encouragement to strive for better situations in our lives, we began to become very close.  Eventually as time went on and we became more and more comfortable with one another, friendship grew into more, and I had flown out from Pennsylvania to California to meet her, and it was love at first sight.  Through the span of our courting we had both traveled to the others' home and eventually led to a marriage proposal at our future home in Minersville, PA, on Christmas Eve of 2015.  Both of us had our separate foundations of faith in the Lord Almighty, and we both did and still do believe that it was in God's will that we find each other.  We approached the matter of differing faiths quite logically at first, learning the basics of our faiths from the others' life stories.  I was not of the Latter Day Saints faith, i had my own thrown together mix of different Christian beliefs; bringing together practices that through my journey through life had been revealed to me as true. My amazing wife had been a member of the LDS Church her entire life.  In an effort to get to know and understand my better half more thoroughly i had begun to investigate the church after she had moved in with me.  Missionaries began to come to our house and answer my questions, shortly thereafter, a tragedy had struck.  I was in an accident at work, where I was driving my truck and another big truck had struck mine (I drive a triaxle dump truck for a living).  The accident had put me in a position where I was unable to work, and I was blessed to have walked away; even blessed to be still alive.  The missionaries came to visit me in the hospital on the day of the accident, July 22, 2016, and had given me a blessing for healing.  Two days after we were supposed to go to tour this wonderful Temple of the Lord, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to go, I prayed deeply every chance I had for the Lord's will to be done, that if I was meant to see it and to be there that I would be.  On the drive down to Philly, I found myself in immense pain through my entire body, praying to the Lord that if He wanted me to be there, and that if this Church was true, to give me a sign in the Temple.  When we began our tour, I had to be taken through the Temple in a wheelchair, every bump over the thresholds of the doorways sent shooting pains through me and the medicines the doctor had prescribed me were rendered useless.  As we were coming to the Celestial Room, I remember praying, pleading with God; "If you're going to show me anything Lord, now would be the time, in Your House, in Your Room."  The tour group had filed into the room and seated themselves for a moment of silent meditation, and I closed my eyes.  From the instant I had closed my eyes every pain in my body was lifted from me, the light that had shown through my closed eyelids had slowly grown brighter and brighter, and I could feel the peace of Christ all around me and within me.  He had answered my prayer, and when I had opened my eyes and the world had begun to rapidly return to the way it was; even so much that my pain had returned in it's fullness, I knew God wanted me to be in his Church and He was going to help me through my sufferings.  

     The missionaries had become a regular in our home, teaching us their lessons, even so often an occurrence was their presence that on days when they weren't over the house felt empty and missing something.  We fed them without regard to our own food issues and God had done for us what i call "fishes and loaving" our food; making it not only sustain us, but the missionaries as well, for a longer period of time than it would have even lasted us on our own.  On the day that we were taught the lesson on chastity, we had asked for a blessing over our home, and the presence of the Lord was felt strongly, and we didn't want it to ever leave, so that night we had moved my place of sleeping from our bedroom upstairs to the dining room downstairs where we could set up my daughter's bed, being that she has moved away with her mother and didn't use it anymore.  We did repent of our sins and transgressions and had practiced the law of chastity.  Shortly thereafter was the lesson on the law of tithing, and since then we have  both practiced that law as well and have been blessed for it. I was then a little lost as to the next step as to where our Heavenly Father wanted me to go, and I prayed for His counsel, I prayed that His will to me be known undoubtedly and undeniably as to what was to be next.  The next day, on the Sabbath, He had revealed to me His will.  After all three hours had been concluded, we were waiting to speak to our Branch President, President Murray, when a lady I had seen but never spoken to had walked up to us and spoke to me while my wonderful fiance was speaking with a different member, saying "I hear you two are engaged, do you have a date set?"  To which my response was "After this trial of hard times with my accident is over we are thinking about celebrating with our wedding."   Her response was simply "There is something about you two, Heavenly Father is with you; you two should be married right away." And she then walked quickly away.  Barely five minutes later another member had came up to us and during talking to us had said; "You know, it doesn't matter your financial situation for a wedding, we can marry you right here in this very Church, and we can throw a pretty good shindig together fairly quickly."  I remember thinking to myself well the first one was a little odd, now this one is quite the coincidence.  It was then our turn to speak with the president, and even in the beginning of our meeting he had remarked to us seemingly off topic and out of no where, "You know I can marry you two if it would be what you would want, and I wouldn't charge you for the service."  That was the undeniable sign, one can be odd, two a coincidence, but three, this had to be the answer I was praying for.  In the weeks following we found ourselves volunteering in the Temple and preparing for our wedding.  The first time volunteering on the drive to the temple I had dozed off for a little while and had a dream; in this dream I had seen the spire of the Temple with the Angel Moroni affixed on the top from the corner of the block across the street against a beautiful white cloud set in an awe inspiring blue sky with the sun just before the cloud, and as I had awoken I knew this was to be where I was going to be placed, and surely enough that is where I served the first 4 hours of that first shift we had volunteered as the crossing guard with an amazing view every time I was not busy with my task of "shepherding" the people across the street.  On the third and final time we volunteered, we were tour guides leading people through the temple together as a team.  We had gotten to take two groups through, and on our way back to see about a third we had passed by one of the senior missionaries we had came with and he exclaimed he had the last tour, we had asked if he minded if we joined the tour, to have one last tour ourselves of this truly amazing house of the Lord, to which he obliged.  

     After the tour had concluded we had went to the baptismal font area to get our cleaning assignments, which to our surprise had all been handed out.  We then asked if it would be alright if we could sit with each other in the Celestial Room, which we were granted.  It was an amazing thing, to be sitting there all alone with the woman who was to soon be my wife in the presence of God.  We sat in silent meditation holding each others' hand, and when I had opened my eyes I could scarcely believe what i saw; I had exclaimed to the beautiful lady by my side "The walls, they're shaking! Everything is shaking! Can you see it?" which she had expressed that she saw it too, and then the reality struck me and I had corrected myself; "Its not the room, it's like.... it's the air! The air is vibrating! And I can see it! The air is alive!"  And so it was that the air was in fact alive and the Lord was there with us and we could not only feel but actually see his presence around us, again I emphasize, we didn't see Him, but we saw His presence alive and all around us!  After a short time people had begun vacuuming just outside of the Celestial Room, and we had took that as our cue to vacate that amazing place.  We then were asked to police the Temple grounds for trash, and our final volunteer date ended with a romantic yet productive stroll all around the beautifully lit Temple at night and through the rooftop garden on the welcoming center.  A perfect end to a perfect day.

     Well it wouldn't be a proper ending to leave a suspense in our story, we were married at Pottsville Branch building of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on Friday September 16th, 2016, at 4:00 pm, I was baptized the following day at 2:00 pm at the Kutztown Ward building, I had attended the Temple Dedication Ceremony 12:00 noonsession the following day with my new father in law at the Reading stake center, and was confirmed a member the following Sabbath during sacrament, and bestowed the Aaronic Priesthood the same day during the priesthood meeting.  We are continuing our lives in the Church happily.  And as a little icing on the cake, my youngest daughter was able to attend our wedding, my baptism and be with me that entire weekend, for the first time in a year and a half, I am also expecting to return to work any day now, knowing that God will continue to heal me until I am complete.  God truly is a loving God who blesses us beyond what we think we want but with what He knows we need.  I would like to set aside a moment of this testimony to thank our awesome elders; Elder Court Lake, Elder Braden Shumway, Senior Elders; Elder and Sister Black, Our Branch President, President Murray, my truly inspiring and amazing wife Mrs. Lori Demeere, and above all Our Heavenly Father for his abounding love and for the gift of His Son's atoning sacrifice that without we would be lost.  I leave this testimony with you in the name of our Heavenly Father's son, even Jesus Christ; Amen.

                                                                                                                                                                                       Faithfully, 

                                                                                                                                                                                            Brother Jonathon R. Demeere

(P.S. I still can't tell or type this story of ours without tearing up at the remembrance of how God had turned an almost tragedy into an inspiring and life changing experience of His love)

Could you send me any names that still need to be baptized. If there
are any please send soon. We are going to the temple  Saturday


Hello mother.Sunday was pretty good. Didn't have fast Sunday
yesterday, just a normal SundayFastSunday was theSunday before
conference. It was that way so people can bear their testimonies about
the temple dedication the week before. Carson said that it's fall
break and he's been working a lot. What have you been up to? Sister
Wojcicki was indeed at our branch conference yesterday. Did you get
her picture? Yeah I was on exchanges with some other elders. I was in
reading for about three days. It was pretty great. Got to see and talk
to some awesome people. I miss reading a lot. Thanks for being nice to
the missionaries.

Haha that's a funny story about the cake. Did you ever make the cake
he wanted? Lila is going to be 14! Is she going into high school next
year? I don't remember what they fed us. We are over there quite a bit
and they are super nice to us. How we found them, Lori's mom called
the church phone while we were at the church and we talked to her and
said that her daughter who is from California has run away with this
man in Pennsylvania and she's worried about her. She asked us to go
check in her. So we did and Jon wasn't there at the time but Lori got
him on the phone. Jon wasn't interested in the Gospel, he just had a
couple of questions about us and what we do. He did want us to come
over for dinner cause he though we were pretty cool. And the rest is
history, Jon kept asking questions and we answered them. Questions
that his pastors and ministers were never able to answer and he kept
getting more and more interested till he finally wanted to get
baptized. I'm going to send you his testimony that he gave us. Jon has
made a good recovery and has gone back to work today. He asked for a
blessing from us yesterday that he will be strong and not be involved
with other truckers foul language. It was awesome.

I don't know if we have had a ton of affects from the hurricane. It is
a little chillier. There were some pretty dark clouds yesterday but we
didn't get any rain. I was thinking about Torie and how she was doing
for the hurricane.

Yeah Elder alstroemerias and I are getting along pretty well. I'm glad
I'm with him. Yep he is from Utah. I don't know about his mom very
much. He doesn't have the best relationship with his family.

That's great you are talking with Elder Lewis. I've been emailing him
a little bit. He seems pretty bored now that he's home. I'm glad I was
able to be with him too. He was a great missionary.

Courtney just had her first transfer? She must of been in that area
for a long time. That's funny about the members wanting to buy her a
house. Yeah Ashlyn has told me that he's in her district. Colten flies
out soon huh? That's great, I'm excited for him.

I'm glad you got the package. Jon gave it to me for free. The Rocky
thing is just a headband. I just wanted to send something else that
would fit and that was the closest thing. Thanks for putting it away
and keeping it safe.

1: Didn't meet anyone too interesting this week. Has been a pretty
stressful week.

2:Haven't been in touch with Mason for a little bit.

3: I'm doing ok with daily exercise. It's really hard. Especially now
that when we wake up it's super dark and cold outside and you don't
want to get out of bed.

That's great you all have joined a gym. I hope you guys stick with it.
It's hard to exercise on the mission. Keep up with it.

Love Elder Shumway

The week was stressful because we've been dealing with a couple of missionaries that drive us pretty crazy. Thankful one of them goes home this transfer and the other one is probably going to get transferred. Also I've got some bad news about Nicki. Nicki has been in contact and has obtained anti Mormon material and has been involved in an organization that is against the church and now she wants nothing to do with the church. She has threaten to call the police if somebody tries to contact her. 

Hi Mom. Yep its already been three conferences! Only one more left. It was great to see all these great men and women. Did dad have a good birthday yesterday? Sounds like he had a great meal. He is getting pretty old. Your and Lila's birthday is right around the corner. Sorry I didn't tell Lori to send you a picture yesterday. We were at their house watching conference and they fed us Lunch too.

Sorry I was late last week and this week too. I'm glad some people notice. Have been super busy these past couple of weeks. I did get Cindy's cookies, they were really good. Haven't gotten grandpa's money yet either. Hopefully will get it soon.

Yep have been having quite a bit of rain. I like the rain. I've been talking with Elder Lewis a little bit. He says that his life is now super boring and he has no friends, just those on the mission. 

My companion has been out for 14 months. He is one transfer older than me.  We are getting along. He has served in a lot of places. Don't remember all of them, but he previously served in the Atlantic City area.

Haven't been in touch with Mason for a while, not sure what's going to happen. 

Hershey is not in our mission.It's in the Pittsburgh mission. 

Yes I got the right card reader and it works great. 

Don't know what I need for Christmas yet. Probably when Christmas gets closer i will figure it out. I don't need any new garments.

That's great for Skyler to get that Job. He will do well there. H loves to play soccer. 

Nice job for showing patience to Sam. patience is something that we all need to learn how to do. I feel joy a lot. Sometimes I do not feel joy, it comes with the job of being a missionary though. 

Love Elder Shumway

P.S. I am sending a small package home. I sent it today, should be there in a few days. It is an IPhone and some accessories. Was given to me for free.

Hi Dad. Conference was great. Faith was mentioned a lot in conference.
I though Elder Hollands talk was great, the one about home teaching.
Hopefully the brothers in the church can get some fire under them and
get there home teaching done. Hope you had a great birthday. Heard you
had a great birthday yesterday. Some good food, like ribs. Thanks for
the football updates.

Best thing about my comp. Well he is really nice and not too annoying.
Is somewhat similar to me. We get along really well, we laugh a lot
and we've been told we look like brothers. We do like the same foods.
New developments, well we are trying to become a ward sometime soon.
Carson told me he's been making quite a bit of money. I'm happy for
him. I'm glad he's working and saving his money. Gecko sounds really
good. I wish they had a place like that out here. They probably do but
I haven't found it yet.

Love Elder Shumway

On splits in Reading.