Many of you have asked us about Kenny's health. Thank you for your love and concern!
Before Kenny left on his mission on July 20th of last year, he was suffering with sporadic knee pain that was aggravated by athletic activity (not that it slowed him down or stopped him from participating in sports!). He had been to doctors before his mission, but initial x-rays and blood work came back clean, not showing any problems that concerned the doctors. After arriving in North Carolina, the pain continued in his knees as well as his feet, especially after long days of tracting. By December, the pain had spread from his knees to include pain in his lower back. By February, the pain had continued to spread to his elbows, wrists, hips, and ankles. He has been to see many doctors, and has had additional x-rays and MRIs taken, none of which has shown the cause of concern. He has had more extensive blood work taken, which has consistently come back negative for any rheumatic disorder, as well as for any known genetic markers for other auto-immune diseases, such as ankylosing spondylitis. The only thing his blood shows is slightly elevated cholesterol (which he blames on too much southern BBQ and hush puppies!). Though the pain has grown to be intense and even keeps him from sleeping through the night, it has not kept him from working hard and being an effective missionary. However, two weeks ago, the mission doctor informed Kenny that they have tried every test that they can think of, and if he does not improve "in the next two to three weeks" (about the first of August), he will recommend that Kenny come home from his mission early to recover.
Kenny does not want to come home. His previous mission president (who returned home to Utah on July 1st) gave him a blessing of healing, including the comforting words "you will be able to complete your mission." However, the deadline proposed by the mission doctor is fast approaching, and Kenny is feeling worse, not better (the stress associated with the idea of being sent home seems to aggravate the condition). Kenny is praying for healing, and trying to exercise faith to receive the blessing.
We welcome your prayers in Kenny's behalf. In addition, our family will be holding a special family fast for him this Sunday, July 29th. If you want to participate in the fast, we would be so grateful. We hope that he will be healed by the Lord; but if not, we hope he will at least gain an understanding of what he should be learning as well as how to take care of his body at this time.
It is a great thing to be a member of a loving, supportive family! Thanks again for your concern,
Steve & Lynn
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Monday, July 23, 2012
Week 51: Yep... Over the hump. :(
Dear family and friends,
Well... I never thought this would happen. Now I'm officially old. July 20, 2012 was three days ago (in case you didn't know), and that means that I have been a missionary for more than an entire year. Wow! I've gained a lot of fun, exciting, happy, scary, sad, crazy, and amazing experiences so far and I know the future has great things in store. I still feel so inadequate and inexperienced but I know that it's going to be a great next year.
I don't have much time so this is going to be short and sweet.
As far as the work goes, it's been really interesting. Our most solid investigator, John, dropped us, and he dropped us hard. He told us that he knows that the Book of Mormon is true and that he needs to be baptized and that the priesthood is restored and all of that. He knows Joseph Smith was a Prophet and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord's Church. But he said he can't get baptized because of some other obligations. It crushed us. After that, our teaching pool kind of blew up in our faces. In about a week we went from having 14 or so investigators to having 5. And 4 of those 5 are close to getting dropped.
On the bright side of things, this gives us way more time to find more people to teach and re-evaluate what's been going on in our area. It's like a new start that is exciting and refreshing and we know there's a lot of potential. We found a new investigator this last week and, even though we're still not too sure how interested Julia is, we are seeing things going in the right direction, and we're really happy about that. We know the Lord is blessing us as we seek out His help. Also, Destiny is on track for baptism on 4 Aug and her family is excited for her and we think they will be more serious about taking the lessons once she sets the example. (Plus, they're taking us out to Golden Corral tonight. I can't wait to get a hold of their chocolate "wonderfall". Haha)
We had some fun experiences, some more interesting than others. We had a couple doors slammed in our faces, which is actually pretty rare. And they happened on the same day! Oddly enough I get a kick out of it when that happens. I'd obviously rather have them let us in and be willing to learn, but it's pretty humorous how that happens. Also, we've killed three massive brown spiders throughout the week, one of which was hiding in the corner on the wall about 4 inches away from Elder Simmons pillow at 10:30 the other night. Fun stuff. Another funny instance was the end of our first lesson with Julia, our new investigator. She's a really nice but very confident and rambunctious middle-aged lady. We ended with a prayer. She reached out to hold hands so the four of us (her, us, and one of the young men who came with us) held hands in a circle while she prayed a very unique yet kind prayer. She paused as she began to close the prayer, and I thought the next word out of her mouth would have been "amen", but instead I heard "I just love you boys!" I looked up and saw her inches away from me in just enough time to be ready for her to give me a big hug! Haha that's not something we're used to out here. We hug the other missionaries all the time but I haven't hugged or been hugged by a woman in over a year. Haha good times. I'm sure I've got quite a good amount of other stories I could share but I gotta run!
I know that the fulness of the gospel has been restored and that the church of Jesus Christ is founded upon Prophets, Seers, and Revelators (Ephesians 2:19-22). I know the Book of Mormon is true and that Christ lives and loves us. His Atonement is perfect, saving, and eternal.
With love,
Elder Schank
Well... I never thought this would happen. Now I'm officially old. July 20, 2012 was three days ago (in case you didn't know), and that means that I have been a missionary for more than an entire year. Wow! I've gained a lot of fun, exciting, happy, scary, sad, crazy, and amazing experiences so far and I know the future has great things in store. I still feel so inadequate and inexperienced but I know that it's going to be a great next year.
I don't have much time so this is going to be short and sweet.
As far as the work goes, it's been really interesting. Our most solid investigator, John, dropped us, and he dropped us hard. He told us that he knows that the Book of Mormon is true and that he needs to be baptized and that the priesthood is restored and all of that. He knows Joseph Smith was a Prophet and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord's Church. But he said he can't get baptized because of some other obligations. It crushed us. After that, our teaching pool kind of blew up in our faces. In about a week we went from having 14 or so investigators to having 5. And 4 of those 5 are close to getting dropped.
On the bright side of things, this gives us way more time to find more people to teach and re-evaluate what's been going on in our area. It's like a new start that is exciting and refreshing and we know there's a lot of potential. We found a new investigator this last week and, even though we're still not too sure how interested Julia is, we are seeing things going in the right direction, and we're really happy about that. We know the Lord is blessing us as we seek out His help. Also, Destiny is on track for baptism on 4 Aug and her family is excited for her and we think they will be more serious about taking the lessons once she sets the example. (Plus, they're taking us out to Golden Corral tonight. I can't wait to get a hold of their chocolate "wonderfall". Haha)
We had some fun experiences, some more interesting than others. We had a couple doors slammed in our faces, which is actually pretty rare. And they happened on the same day! Oddly enough I get a kick out of it when that happens. I'd obviously rather have them let us in and be willing to learn, but it's pretty humorous how that happens. Also, we've killed three massive brown spiders throughout the week, one of which was hiding in the corner on the wall about 4 inches away from Elder Simmons pillow at 10:30 the other night. Fun stuff. Another funny instance was the end of our first lesson with Julia, our new investigator. She's a really nice but very confident and rambunctious middle-aged lady. We ended with a prayer. She reached out to hold hands so the four of us (her, us, and one of the young men who came with us) held hands in a circle while she prayed a very unique yet kind prayer. She paused as she began to close the prayer, and I thought the next word out of her mouth would have been "amen", but instead I heard "I just love you boys!" I looked up and saw her inches away from me in just enough time to be ready for her to give me a big hug! Haha that's not something we're used to out here. We hug the other missionaries all the time but I haven't hugged or been hugged by a woman in over a year. Haha good times. I'm sure I've got quite a good amount of other stories I could share but I gotta run!
I know that the fulness of the gospel has been restored and that the church of Jesus Christ is founded upon Prophets, Seers, and Revelators (Ephesians 2:19-22). I know the Book of Mormon is true and that Christ lives and loves us. His Atonement is perfect, saving, and eternal.
With love,
Elder Schank
Monday, July 9, 2012
Week 49
Most of Kenny's letter this week was answering family questions. Below is some news on his health that he asked us to pass on. Thanks for your continued love, support and prayers!
Lynn
Transfers are on Tuesday, but I'm going to be staying here in Hope Mills. These will probably be my last 6 weeks here, and then I'll probably be off to a new area. Elder Simmons and I are really happy we're staying together for one more transfer.
Alright, I know you're anxious to hear about my health, so naturally I saved it for last. The blood tests came back, and showed nothing was abnormal. (Except my cholesterol is just a hair high... daggone hushpuppies. But even that isn't a logical factor.) The internist says he knows of nothing else to do, but he does know that it's not a rheumatic disease or disorder. I talked again with Dr. Smalley, the area medical advisor for the mission (he's an orthopedic surgeon by practice), and he reaffirmed that the internist was correct. ... I'm kind of just ranting so I'll cut to the chase. Basically if things don't start improving in the next three weeks... I'm coming home. Dr. Smalley says that the Lord doesn't want my mission to mess up my health for the rest of my life. Since it's just getting worse, he says that I will need to try to take care of it in Utah. So these three weeks are essentially what determines if I'm staying. Thank you for fasting for me... please keep me in your prayers. I'm doing the best I can to let the muscles in my back relax, and Elder Simmons is going to be helping me, but I have to admit I'm a little skeptical about it working. By myself, that is. I know that the Lord's will will be done. I don't really know what He would want me to do more than be a full-time missionary right now, but I have definitely learned through my mission that He works in some super mysterious ways. I'm going to be praying and trying hard to have faith and doing my very best to heal up, but with the attitude "Thy will be done." Unlike the last time I was worried I might go home (when Pres. Cotterell gave me that priesthood blessing), I feel comforted and at peace. I hope I get to serve longer, but I am proud to say I don't have any regrets... except I could be better at writing in my journal. I'm working on it.
Spiritual thought for the day: Moroni 7:33.
"And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me."
I know that that is true.
Elder Schank
Lynn
Transfers are on Tuesday, but I'm going to be staying here in Hope Mills. These will probably be my last 6 weeks here, and then I'll probably be off to a new area. Elder Simmons and I are really happy we're staying together for one more transfer.
Alright, I know you're anxious to hear about my health, so naturally I saved it for last. The blood tests came back, and showed nothing was abnormal. (Except my cholesterol is just a hair high... daggone hushpuppies. But even that isn't a logical factor.) The internist says he knows of nothing else to do, but he does know that it's not a rheumatic disease or disorder. I talked again with Dr. Smalley, the area medical advisor for the mission (he's an orthopedic surgeon by practice), and he reaffirmed that the internist was correct. ... I'm kind of just ranting so I'll cut to the chase. Basically if things don't start improving in the next three weeks... I'm coming home. Dr. Smalley says that the Lord doesn't want my mission to mess up my health for the rest of my life. Since it's just getting worse, he says that I will need to try to take care of it in Utah. So these three weeks are essentially what determines if I'm staying. Thank you for fasting for me... please keep me in your prayers. I'm doing the best I can to let the muscles in my back relax, and Elder Simmons is going to be helping me, but I have to admit I'm a little skeptical about it working. By myself, that is. I know that the Lord's will will be done. I don't really know what He would want me to do more than be a full-time missionary right now, but I have definitely learned through my mission that He works in some super mysterious ways. I'm going to be praying and trying hard to have faith and doing my very best to heal up, but with the attitude "Thy will be done." Unlike the last time I was worried I might go home (when Pres. Cotterell gave me that priesthood blessing), I feel comforted and at peace. I hope I get to serve longer, but I am proud to say I don't have any regrets... except I could be better at writing in my journal. I'm working on it.
Spiritual thought for the day: Moroni 7:33.
"And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me."
I know that that is true.
Elder Schank
Monday, July 2, 2012
Week 48: Welcome, President Bernhisel
Dear family and friends,
It's been a hot one here in North Carolina. Over the weekend it hit
114 degrees! No joke. And that's not even taking the humidity into
consideration. The overall heat index was probably around 120. It was
blistering all week until Sunday. The heavens opened and raindrops the size of
paintballs fell hard for a few hours while we were in church. Actually, during
the last hour, the church lost power for a few minutes and after it came back
on the lights would flicker every once in a while. Mass chaos ensued and
primary children were screaming and running through the halls into doors,
walls, and each other. Our assistant ward mission leader was in the bathroom at
the time and it was pretty funny. Luckily, the temperature dropped from above
110 to the mid 70s during the rainstorm, but it seems that the temperature drop
didn't last very long, seeing as it's really hot right now, less than 24 hours
later. Over the weekend there were also a lot of winds that took out a few
small trees, but nothing too serious here. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that
our air conditioning unit under our house doesn't work when the heat gets much
higher than 100 degrees out... which is exactly when we need it to work. We
called the member who owns the lease and he crawled under the house to try to
figure it out and also noticed that the insulation under the floor was missing.
So that answers the question why we've been sweating during our prayers at
10:30 at night. And all this time we thought we were just praying really
intensely.
No news to report on my back/joints. I still haven't gotten any news
from the doctor as far as what the last blood test showed. Hopefully I'll hear
from him today.
We did a lot of teaching today... since Elder Simmons showed up I
haven't taught so much in my whole mission! It seems like when I was with Elder
Farr we worked hard to find a lot of people to teach, and now with that
preparation taken care of we have been able to teach a lot of people.
We're still finding 2-4 new people on a weekly basis, too, so that's good. But
there's not really a whole lot of new stuff going on with our investigators.
John is doing great. He mentioned in Sunday School class that he
knows the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God's true church and
that the Book of Mormon has helped him through his conversion. He proudly
announced in priesthood meeting opening exercises that he is going to get
baptized on the 21st and that he's living the Word of Wisdom. It's been amazing
to see how all of his questions are being answered by the Spirit through us. In
our last lesson with him, at least three times we directed him to some
scriptures and with each one he had a "Eureka" moment in answer to
some questions he's had for a long time. It was so great getting to watch his
face as the Book of Mormon answered the years-old questions that have been pent
up inside his mind.
Things with Robin are still going good. She is getting interviewed
for baptism by our new mission president on Thursday.
Speaking of him, we had the opportunity of meeting President and
Sister Bernhisel the day after they arrived at our zone leader council meeting.
They are great. You can tell they don't have a few years of experience under
their belts quite yet, but it's very apparent that the Lord is with them. He
seems pretty determined to help me recover medically because he is a doctor by
profession; although, he is an OB-GYN (not too sure he'll be able to help me
out that much, then).
So... yeah. That's pretty much the big news. I'm trying to think...
oh yeah! We had this referral from a Filipino member. Her friend invited us to
a dinner. When we showed up we realized we were the only people who weren't
either Filipino or related to one. It was pretty fun. They taught us a few
Tagalog words and were impressed with my pronunciation (it uses the same kind
of vowel sounds as Korean, it seems like, so I learned them from Dad). Haha...
So "como sta bo" means "Hello, how are you?" and
"Salamat bo" means "thank you"! One of our members who
served in the Phillippines has been teaching his son (who can't even speak
English) yet a few words in Tagalog, so I also picked up "mata"
("eye"). I forgot how to say "nose" and "mouth"
already.
Well, I love you all and hope to hear from you soon!
With love,
Elder Schank
Monday, June 25, 2012
Week 47: More Miracles in Hope Mills
Hello everyone!
I hope you had a great week. Things are going super great here! A lot of great stuff happened this week.
For one thing, I made these SUPER delicious nachos. They were way good! I couldn't figure out how to spread the refried beans on top of the layer of tortilla chips, so I made a mat out of tortillas on the bottom of a pan, smothered it with beans, and then put the chips on top of it. Then I spread some chicken and a bunch of shredded pepper-jack/cheddar cheese on it and cooked it. Meanwhile, I diced up a tomato and mixed it up with lime juice, cumin, cayenne pepper, and a little bit of minced garlic. When it was done cooking, I covered it with guacamole and the tomatoes (after I drained off the excess juice) and Voila! you bet it was delicious! Anyway, I was super proud of it! Haha
I also went to see an internal med doctor on Wednesday. I was pretty nervous when I got there because the office was in a trailer, and the windows and door were barred. When I met my doctor (whose name I can't pronounce) it was hard to understand what he was saying because he had a very thick Indian accent. He did a few different things to check my range of motion, breathing, heart, etc. and couldn't find anything wrong, but from my description he seems to suspect ankylosed spondylitis. He ordered another blood test to look for a few other factors, which I had done right after I left. I'm expecting him to call in the next few days to tell me what he thinks. I don't remember what ankylosed spondylitis is from my medical anatomy class in high school, but he seems to know what he's talking about so I'm hopeful that he can find a diagnosis.
As far as the actual pain goes, no difference. And by no difference, I mean that it's slowly but progressively getting worse. Oh, well.
And now, I'll talk about the work! We've continued to see miracles here and I love that. Earlier in the week we set some goals to find 3 new investigators this week. We hadn't found any when Saturday rolled around, so we figured it was pretty much our last chance to reach our goal and that we'd have to find 3 investigators all in one day. And that's definitely not unheard of, but it certainly is challenging. Good thing we were up to the challenge. We taught a few lessons in the morning and they went really well. We also had two back-to-back in the evening with some potential investigators, and we were banking on them becoming the new investigators we had set out to teach.
The first evening lesson we had was with Willie. He is a very simple man. He lives in a group home and we taught him just a very few principles. He had a couple friends that sat in, too, but we could tell that they simply weren't accountable... they just weren't mentally all there. (One of them was telling us he wanted to go back to the place called "The Lands" where he had been before. Apparently in "The Lands" there are several worlds in one blade of grass. By his description, it sounded like a really nice place, and he really wanted us to help him get there. We had no idea what he was talking about, so we agreed to pray for him. He was really happy about that. The other guy just sat in a big armchair smiling from ear to ear the whole time and talked really quietly throughout the lesson.) Willie told us he'd like for us to come back and teach him more about Christ, so we set up a return appointment and went over to our next lesson.
Our next lesson was tucked away in the back of this awesome trailer park. You have to go off-roading on this dirt road that's full of craters and small lakes. It looked like the planes from Pope Airfield over in Fort Bragg dropped some payloads there in the past. Luckily Bro. Potter from the ward was with us and helped us forge our way to the trailer in his Suburban. When we got there, there were 5 women waiting for us there: Conise, Conisha, Shaunda, Kenya, and Octavia. They're all related somehow, and Shaunda is actually a potential investigator in the Lumberton area. Conise is kind of the matron, and most of the rest are younger than 20. Each of the younger women had one or two toddlers, so it was pretty distracting, and we don't know if they're more interested in the message or the missionaries, but you could feel the spirit when we taught them the message of the restoration. Towards the end of the lesson, we extended baptismal invitations and Conise, Conisha, and Octavia each said they would be baptized on July 28th. Shaunda and Kenya said they had already been baptized, so we'll keep working with them. But anyway, we ended up having found 5 new investigators (Shaunda doesn't count because she's not in our area) in two hours time, almost doubling our goal! I really know that the Lord helps us accomplish our righteous goals if we work to do our part.
A few weeks ago we got a church headquarters media referral. It was a guy named Anthony who requested a free Bible on Mormon.org. We called him and set up a time to go over there, give it to him, and teach him a message from it. When we got there at the appointed time, we found out that it was another group home, and as we sat down to teach Anthony, his friend came to join us. His name was John, and he was holding a used copy of the Book of Mormon! As we sat down to teach them, we found out that John had run into missionaries before and was really interested in the Book of Mormon. We taught them both about how the gospel was restored and both of them said they would be baptized on June 21st! Days later John called us and told us that Anthony didn't want to meet with us anymore because his family was opposed to him becoming a Mormon, but John was still really interested. We've taught him a few times since then. He's been completely willing to live the Word of Wisdom and the law of chastity now and he's doing a great job! He's on track for his baptism. In fact, he came to church with us yesterday and he loved it. In Gospel Principles, the lesson was on obedience. When the teacher asked for a volunteer from the class (composed of investigators and members) to retell the story of Nephi returning to Jerusalem for the brass plates of Laban, John raised his hand and recited in explicit detail the whole story! It was amazing! Our ward members were really impressed. He loves the story of the Tree of Life and he's applying it.
We're still teaching Robin, and she's doing a great job! She's living all the commandments and she finished the entire Book of Mormon! In 20 days! That completely shatters my record. She's experienced some serious conversion! :)
Sorry... no pictures this go-around due to technical difficulties.
As for my testimony this week, I'll let www.biblevideos.org sum it up for me. I invite you to visit this site and watch one video. I promise that if you do so with faith in Christ, your relationship with Him will strengthen just a little bit. :)
Well, I've gotta run... we're about to go play some mini golf... wish me luck! I love you all so much and hope to hear from you soon!
With love,
Elder Schank
I hope you had a great week. Things are going super great here! A lot of great stuff happened this week.
For one thing, I made these SUPER delicious nachos. They were way good! I couldn't figure out how to spread the refried beans on top of the layer of tortilla chips, so I made a mat out of tortillas on the bottom of a pan, smothered it with beans, and then put the chips on top of it. Then I spread some chicken and a bunch of shredded pepper-jack/cheddar cheese on it and cooked it. Meanwhile, I diced up a tomato and mixed it up with lime juice, cumin, cayenne pepper, and a little bit of minced garlic. When it was done cooking, I covered it with guacamole and the tomatoes (after I drained off the excess juice) and Voila! you bet it was delicious! Anyway, I was super proud of it! Haha
I also went to see an internal med doctor on Wednesday. I was pretty nervous when I got there because the office was in a trailer, and the windows and door were barred. When I met my doctor (whose name I can't pronounce) it was hard to understand what he was saying because he had a very thick Indian accent. He did a few different things to check my range of motion, breathing, heart, etc. and couldn't find anything wrong, but from my description he seems to suspect ankylosed spondylitis. He ordered another blood test to look for a few other factors, which I had done right after I left. I'm expecting him to call in the next few days to tell me what he thinks. I don't remember what ankylosed spondylitis is from my medical anatomy class in high school, but he seems to know what he's talking about so I'm hopeful that he can find a diagnosis.
As far as the actual pain goes, no difference. And by no difference, I mean that it's slowly but progressively getting worse. Oh, well.
And now, I'll talk about the work! We've continued to see miracles here and I love that. Earlier in the week we set some goals to find 3 new investigators this week. We hadn't found any when Saturday rolled around, so we figured it was pretty much our last chance to reach our goal and that we'd have to find 3 investigators all in one day. And that's definitely not unheard of, but it certainly is challenging. Good thing we were up to the challenge. We taught a few lessons in the morning and they went really well. We also had two back-to-back in the evening with some potential investigators, and we were banking on them becoming the new investigators we had set out to teach.
The first evening lesson we had was with Willie. He is a very simple man. He lives in a group home and we taught him just a very few principles. He had a couple friends that sat in, too, but we could tell that they simply weren't accountable... they just weren't mentally all there. (One of them was telling us he wanted to go back to the place called "The Lands" where he had been before. Apparently in "The Lands" there are several worlds in one blade of grass. By his description, it sounded like a really nice place, and he really wanted us to help him get there. We had no idea what he was talking about, so we agreed to pray for him. He was really happy about that. The other guy just sat in a big armchair smiling from ear to ear the whole time and talked really quietly throughout the lesson.) Willie told us he'd like for us to come back and teach him more about Christ, so we set up a return appointment and went over to our next lesson.
Our next lesson was tucked away in the back of this awesome trailer park. You have to go off-roading on this dirt road that's full of craters and small lakes. It looked like the planes from Pope Airfield over in Fort Bragg dropped some payloads there in the past. Luckily Bro. Potter from the ward was with us and helped us forge our way to the trailer in his Suburban. When we got there, there were 5 women waiting for us there: Conise, Conisha, Shaunda, Kenya, and Octavia. They're all related somehow, and Shaunda is actually a potential investigator in the Lumberton area. Conise is kind of the matron, and most of the rest are younger than 20. Each of the younger women had one or two toddlers, so it was pretty distracting, and we don't know if they're more interested in the message or the missionaries, but you could feel the spirit when we taught them the message of the restoration. Towards the end of the lesson, we extended baptismal invitations and Conise, Conisha, and Octavia each said they would be baptized on July 28th. Shaunda and Kenya said they had already been baptized, so we'll keep working with them. But anyway, we ended up having found 5 new investigators (Shaunda doesn't count because she's not in our area) in two hours time, almost doubling our goal! I really know that the Lord helps us accomplish our righteous goals if we work to do our part.
A few weeks ago we got a church headquarters media referral. It was a guy named Anthony who requested a free Bible on Mormon.org. We called him and set up a time to go over there, give it to him, and teach him a message from it. When we got there at the appointed time, we found out that it was another group home, and as we sat down to teach Anthony, his friend came to join us. His name was John, and he was holding a used copy of the Book of Mormon! As we sat down to teach them, we found out that John had run into missionaries before and was really interested in the Book of Mormon. We taught them both about how the gospel was restored and both of them said they would be baptized on June 21st! Days later John called us and told us that Anthony didn't want to meet with us anymore because his family was opposed to him becoming a Mormon, but John was still really interested. We've taught him a few times since then. He's been completely willing to live the Word of Wisdom and the law of chastity now and he's doing a great job! He's on track for his baptism. In fact, he came to church with us yesterday and he loved it. In Gospel Principles, the lesson was on obedience. When the teacher asked for a volunteer from the class (composed of investigators and members) to retell the story of Nephi returning to Jerusalem for the brass plates of Laban, John raised his hand and recited in explicit detail the whole story! It was amazing! Our ward members were really impressed. He loves the story of the Tree of Life and he's applying it.
We're still teaching Robin, and she's doing a great job! She's living all the commandments and she finished the entire Book of Mormon! In 20 days! That completely shatters my record. She's experienced some serious conversion! :)
Sorry... no pictures this go-around due to technical difficulties.
As for my testimony this week, I'll let www.biblevideos.org sum it up for me. I invite you to visit this site and watch one video. I promise that if you do so with faith in Christ, your relationship with Him will strengthen just a little bit. :)
Well, I've gotta run... we're about to go play some mini golf... wish me luck! I love you all so much and hope to hear from you soon!
With love,
Elder Schank
Monday, June 18, 2012
Week 46: One year older and wiser too...maybe
Hello, friends and family!
Well this week has been full of miracles and some really good times! I hope you had just as much of a good week as I did. (My apologies for not getting an update sent off last week.)
First of all, I want to tell you about one particular miracle we had a few weeks ago. We felt prompted to go visit a part-member family. So we did. We were able to talk to the wife, who was a really super nice less-active member, and she said she would talk to her husband about setting up a time for us to come back! We headed back to the parking lot to write some things down in our planners and plan where we would go next. After standing by the trunk of our car and for a couple minutes, a lady across the street was checking her mail. We yelled her down and went over to talk to her. After telling her a little bit about who we were and the message we share, she said "Yeah, you can come talk to me! I love fellowshipping with other followers of Christ and learning about His word. I love anything that has to do with the gospel of Christ." For a lot of you westerners, you might think, "Wow! What a great response! I bet she became a super great investigator!" but that's a pretty common response out here, and I have to be honest that while I definitely saw a lot of good potential there, I just figured it was another contact. It was just a little too "normal", I thought. We set up an appointment and taught her more about the Book of Mormon. It turns out, she already had a copy. That made me a little more excited, but I have to admit still, not much. We warned her that the devil would try to keep her from reading it and learning more about the restored gospel because he knows that it's true and will bless her life. We also asked her permission to contact her via phone on a daily basis to follow up on her reading and see how she's doing. When we left, I thought, "Well, that was a pretty good contact! We'll see how it goes." I was still a little more faithless than I'd now like to admit until the next day when we asked her how things were going reading the Book of Mormon. She told us that before she began reading, she prayed to God to know if it was true. As she began reading, a whole lot of "worldly distractions" randomly started to intervene. She said, "I could tell the devil didn't want me to read it and I said to God, "God, I can already tell that there is something true about this book." THAT got me excited. We went over to teach her for the first time and she had already finished reading the entire book of 1 Nephi! She really caught on to the fact that there was a Great Apostasy and was sitting on the edge of her seat as we taught the message of the restoration of lost authority and plain and precious truths. She told us that while she liked her current church, she still felt like there was something missing. We were really happy, but we weren't through just yet because Elder Simmons and I have been focusing a lot on the essential ordinance of baptism and helping people to receive it. We were a little nervous to invite her to be baptized, because she had already told us she was saved (she had accepted Christ as her Savior and believed her sins were taken away). But, we invited her anyway. She lit up and told us that while she had been saved, she had never been baptized and had been thinking a lot lately about finding someone who could baptize her because she knows that it's important. Needless to say, she accepted the invitation, and she is still on track for June 30. Since then, she's come to church every week, has had a few more lessons with us, has attended someone else's baptism (and said "I wish that was me!"), and is now in the book of Alma (which, for those of you who aren't familiar with the Book of Mormon, is several hundred pages into it. I think it took me months to get there from the beginning the first time I started to read the Book of Mormon!). She loves the Book of Mormon and knows that it is true. She can't wait to get baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
I wish I had the time to tell you all about the other miracles we've seen. I can tell you briefly one, though. As I mentioned earlier, Elder Simmons and I have been focusing a lot on helping people to progress towards baptism by accepting a specific date to be baptized as a goal to work for. We had 0 baptismal dates to report by the end of two weeks ago. Yesterday, we ended the week having 5 investigators with baptismal dates. The Lord has definitely been blessing us as we've concentrated our focus on helping people come unto Him through this wonderful, essential ordinance.
As far as my health goes, I'm hanging in there, I guess. Really no news to report. I didn't really get much sleep last night because I couldn't get comfortable cause my back was being weird. I eventually was able to sleep after I took some ibuprofen and heated my back with that makeshift heat pack I made out of dry beans, a towel, and some rubber bands. I will be calling a clinic of internal medicine today to try to set up an appointment. They are pretty much my last chance before it's left up to me and God alone to figure out what's going on back there.
On the brighter side of things, I had a great birthday! I got the family's package and cards right on time and the family who fed us that night surprised me with a gigantic German chocolate cake. I also got a lot of text messages and voicemails (most of which included some very creative renditions of various birthday songs) from the missionaries in our district. I also sported a nasty comb-over just for the occasion. (As shown in the picture taken at our district meeting, which is included.)
I am so grateful for the restoration. I wish I could convey it, but I don't know the words that can express my gratitude for it adequately enough. I know that baptism is essential. It's not about the baptisms; it's not about how many people we get to add to our tally of the population of the church. It's about helping people step through the gate, as the prophet Nephi alludes to, that leads to eternal life. I know that without the ordinance of baptism, done by immersion and under proper priesthood authority, we can't receive a remission of sins and become clean through the Atonement of Christ. What a powerful and bold statement, and yet I know that it's true. And that's exactly why I haven't come home just yet. Even though every day is so hard, and I sometimes wonder if I really make a difference, I know, with a conviction that I could never deny, that the message of restored authority and truth to the earth is true; that the Book of Mormon is convincing evidence of this restoration; and that we have living Prophet and Apostles to lead the Church of Christ today. I know that if I did nothing but provide one single person the mere opportunity to choose to be baptized by this restored authority into Christ's restored church, these two difficult years would be more than worth it.
I love you all so much and hope that you are doing great. I'd love to hear from you! Have a great week! :)
With love,
Elder Schank
Well this week has been full of miracles and some really good times! I hope you had just as much of a good week as I did. (My apologies for not getting an update sent off last week.)
First of all, I want to tell you about one particular miracle we had a few weeks ago. We felt prompted to go visit a part-member family. So we did. We were able to talk to the wife, who was a really super nice less-active member, and she said she would talk to her husband about setting up a time for us to come back! We headed back to the parking lot to write some things down in our planners and plan where we would go next. After standing by the trunk of our car and for a couple minutes, a lady across the street was checking her mail. We yelled her down and went over to talk to her. After telling her a little bit about who we were and the message we share, she said "Yeah, you can come talk to me! I love fellowshipping with other followers of Christ and learning about His word. I love anything that has to do with the gospel of Christ." For a lot of you westerners, you might think, "Wow! What a great response! I bet she became a super great investigator!" but that's a pretty common response out here, and I have to be honest that while I definitely saw a lot of good potential there, I just figured it was another contact. It was just a little too "normal", I thought. We set up an appointment and taught her more about the Book of Mormon. It turns out, she already had a copy. That made me a little more excited, but I have to admit still, not much. We warned her that the devil would try to keep her from reading it and learning more about the restored gospel because he knows that it's true and will bless her life. We also asked her permission to contact her via phone on a daily basis to follow up on her reading and see how she's doing. When we left, I thought, "Well, that was a pretty good contact! We'll see how it goes." I was still a little more faithless than I'd now like to admit until the next day when we asked her how things were going reading the Book of Mormon. She told us that before she began reading, she prayed to God to know if it was true. As she began reading, a whole lot of "worldly distractions" randomly started to intervene. She said, "I could tell the devil didn't want me to read it and I said to God, "God, I can already tell that there is something true about this book." THAT got me excited. We went over to teach her for the first time and she had already finished reading the entire book of 1 Nephi! She really caught on to the fact that there was a Great Apostasy and was sitting on the edge of her seat as we taught the message of the restoration of lost authority and plain and precious truths. She told us that while she liked her current church, she still felt like there was something missing. We were really happy, but we weren't through just yet because Elder Simmons and I have been focusing a lot on the essential ordinance of baptism and helping people to receive it. We were a little nervous to invite her to be baptized, because she had already told us she was saved (she had accepted Christ as her Savior and believed her sins were taken away). But, we invited her anyway. She lit up and told us that while she had been saved, she had never been baptized and had been thinking a lot lately about finding someone who could baptize her because she knows that it's important. Needless to say, she accepted the invitation, and she is still on track for June 30. Since then, she's come to church every week, has had a few more lessons with us, has attended someone else's baptism (and said "I wish that was me!"), and is now in the book of Alma (which, for those of you who aren't familiar with the Book of Mormon, is several hundred pages into it. I think it took me months to get there from the beginning the first time I started to read the Book of Mormon!). She loves the Book of Mormon and knows that it is true. She can't wait to get baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
I wish I had the time to tell you all about the other miracles we've seen. I can tell you briefly one, though. As I mentioned earlier, Elder Simmons and I have been focusing a lot on helping people to progress towards baptism by accepting a specific date to be baptized as a goal to work for. We had 0 baptismal dates to report by the end of two weeks ago. Yesterday, we ended the week having 5 investigators with baptismal dates. The Lord has definitely been blessing us as we've concentrated our focus on helping people come unto Him through this wonderful, essential ordinance.
As far as my health goes, I'm hanging in there, I guess. Really no news to report. I didn't really get much sleep last night because I couldn't get comfortable cause my back was being weird. I eventually was able to sleep after I took some ibuprofen and heated my back with that makeshift heat pack I made out of dry beans, a towel, and some rubber bands. I will be calling a clinic of internal medicine today to try to set up an appointment. They are pretty much my last chance before it's left up to me and God alone to figure out what's going on back there.
On the brighter side of things, I had a great birthday! I got the family's package and cards right on time and the family who fed us that night surprised me with a gigantic German chocolate cake. I also got a lot of text messages and voicemails (most of which included some very creative renditions of various birthday songs) from the missionaries in our district. I also sported a nasty comb-over just for the occasion. (As shown in the picture taken at our district meeting, which is included.)
I am so grateful for the restoration. I wish I could convey it, but I don't know the words that can express my gratitude for it adequately enough. I know that baptism is essential. It's not about the baptisms; it's not about how many people we get to add to our tally of the population of the church. It's about helping people step through the gate, as the prophet Nephi alludes to, that leads to eternal life. I know that without the ordinance of baptism, done by immersion and under proper priesthood authority, we can't receive a remission of sins and become clean through the Atonement of Christ. What a powerful and bold statement, and yet I know that it's true. And that's exactly why I haven't come home just yet. Even though every day is so hard, and I sometimes wonder if I really make a difference, I know, with a conviction that I could never deny, that the message of restored authority and truth to the earth is true; that the Book of Mormon is convincing evidence of this restoration; and that we have living Prophet and Apostles to lead the Church of Christ today. I know that if I did nothing but provide one single person the mere opportunity to choose to be baptized by this restored authority into Christ's restored church, these two difficult years would be more than worth it.
I love you all so much and hope that you are doing great. I'd love to hear from you! Have a great week! :)
With love,
Elder Schank
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| Sometimes it get so humid that my glasses fog up as soon as I step outside |
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| Wilfredo's baptism |
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| District meeting on my birthday. |
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| Happy birthday to me! |
Monday, June 4, 2012
Week 44: Meeting Elder Holland
Hello, Friends and Family!
This week was so good!
The big highlight of the week was on Saturday, when we got to meet Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles! He came to our mission conference, accompanied by President L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy and Elder Keith Giddens, who is the area seventy over our mission.
Elder Giddens spoke first, about being careful to not spend our time in secondary endeavors.
President Clayton spoke about conversion, activation, and retention. He talked about how we want to bring people into the gospel so that they'll never leave.
Elder Holland spoke on all kinds of things. I don't think he really had anything planned as far as what he was going to say to us, to be honest. But everything he said was powerful. I didn't have time to write down everything I wanted to because it was one profound one-liner after the next. Probably my favorite thing that he said was "There is nothing in this universe as important as contributing to the salvation of the human soul." I think it's safe to say that all of us could feel the power and love of God through him. I know I did.
I don't have much time to comment on anything else, but I'll give a quick update on my health. I went to a lab to have some tests run on my blood to see if it could give us any clues as to what is wrong with my joints, but the results showed nothing abnormal that would cause joint pain. So... I guess we've eliminated yet another possible diagnosis or two or five, but we still don't know what's going on. I'm still a little short of breath from mowing that sandy lawn 10 days ago, but I'm not really concerned about it. If it's still a problem by Saturday, I'll add it to the list of things for our mission doctor to look into.
I hope you know that the gospel has been restored to the earth through living Prophets and Apostles. I testify that they hold the priesthood keys to the kingdom of God and that those who listen to their words and obey them will never need to search for happiness or peace.
I love you all and hope to hear from you soon! :)
With love,
Elder Schank
This week was so good!
The big highlight of the week was on Saturday, when we got to meet Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles! He came to our mission conference, accompanied by President L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy and Elder Keith Giddens, who is the area seventy over our mission.
Elder Giddens spoke first, about being careful to not spend our time in secondary endeavors.
President Clayton spoke about conversion, activation, and retention. He talked about how we want to bring people into the gospel so that they'll never leave.
Elder Holland spoke on all kinds of things. I don't think he really had anything planned as far as what he was going to say to us, to be honest. But everything he said was powerful. I didn't have time to write down everything I wanted to because it was one profound one-liner after the next. Probably my favorite thing that he said was "There is nothing in this universe as important as contributing to the salvation of the human soul." I think it's safe to say that all of us could feel the power and love of God through him. I know I did.
I don't have much time to comment on anything else, but I'll give a quick update on my health. I went to a lab to have some tests run on my blood to see if it could give us any clues as to what is wrong with my joints, but the results showed nothing abnormal that would cause joint pain. So... I guess we've eliminated yet another possible diagnosis or two or five, but we still don't know what's going on. I'm still a little short of breath from mowing that sandy lawn 10 days ago, but I'm not really concerned about it. If it's still a problem by Saturday, I'll add it to the list of things for our mission doctor to look into.
I hope you know that the gospel has been restored to the earth through living Prophets and Apostles. I testify that they hold the priesthood keys to the kingdom of God and that those who listen to their words and obey them will never need to search for happiness or peace.
I love you all and hope to hear from you soon! :)
With love,
Elder Schank
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