Thanksgiving Week

This week was super busy!  We tried working very hard to accomplish our goals early in the week because of Thanksgiving, but even after a full week of effort, we fell short.    Thanksgiving day was a blast though.  We had an exchange with the assistants on Wed and they spent the night that night.  In the morning, we went to one of the nearby high school turf fields and played in a multi-ward turkeybowl.  There were times when the game got very intense. Some of the members would argue with each other about the rules or what actually happened.  Okies get very intense when it comes to football.   

After that game, we went to a park by President Taylo'rs home to play football with he and his family. That game was way less intense.   I played on the line with President Taylor. There was one play in the game where Elder Hanes slipped and fell when he was going up against President on the line. President Taylor fell on top of Elder Hanes and pretended like he had tackled him.  It was very funny. 

   

          We had a Thanksgiving dinner with some members in our ward at about 2:30 and then right after that, we had another dinner with a Seinor office couple and some other missionaries.  I ate way too much!    I was so stuffed!

          
        It is cool to see how true the scriptures are and how accuratly thay apply to our lives today. Every week I watch scenes from the scriptures play out before my eyes....as we work with investigators, and ward members. It is unbelievable. But I gain a lot of insight from the scriptures.  I love the scriptures.   

             

  Love Elder Shumway

Elder Bowen Visits!

This week was great!   All of the Zone Leaders met at the Moore stake-center for our meeting with Elder Bowen, of the Seventy. The meeting was very motivating. He expects a lot out of us.

      Elder Bowen came the next day to inspect our CLEAN apartment.  President Taylor came the morning before and joined us for companionship study. It was great!  He wanted to inspect our apartment before Elder Bowen came.   He told us that Elder Bowen was going to check everything, even our planners and also the area-book.  But when Elder Bowen came the next morning with his wife and President and Sister Taylor, they just looked in our closets and cabinets and bathrooms and then talked to us. It was awesome!   He asked us some questions and he taught us about the importance of keeping our apartment like the temple; in good, clean condition so that is can be a place of revelation during planning and studies. A place that that keeps us apart from the world.   It was cool. Then he gave us each a hug, but it wasn't like any usual man-hug. It was like he was my Mom or my Grandma. He hugged us for a long time.  The spirit in our apartment was SOOOO strong and you could feel the love radiating off of him.

     The next day we went to Norman where we had Mission Tour Conference. It was sweet. Elder Bowen gave a 4 hour training without any notes. All he had was his ipad (scriptures).  He was very bold with all of the missionaries.  He was not afraid to call anyone out.  That is exactly what our mission needed. There are lots of missionaries who are starting to slack off. Mostly because there are so many young missionaries in our mission.  And there are going to be way more young missionaries added soon. The zone leaders are responsible for the growth of each missionary in the zone. We have to hold them accountable to help them all rise to their potential, to become leaders so that they can train or be a district leader or replace us.   I had an interview with President Taylor this morning and that is pretty much all that we talked about.

      We had a baptism this Sunday!! His name is Andy. He is a funny guy. He just recently started dating this girl like 5 days ago and she sat in on a lesson with Andy and also came to his baptism. Now SHE wants to be baptized!!!!     We have been focusing on working through peoples "networks."  The people who are interested in the gospel have friends. (A lot more friends than we have.) So we work through the people who have connections.  like Andy and his Girlfriend. We just need to be sure that she is converting for the right reasons. 

     I'm excited for Thanksgiving. We will be playing in a Turkey-bowl with President and Sister Taylor, their sons and some other nearby missionaries.   It will be fun.  

       We are Improving a lot in working with the ward and the branch. Good things are happening!

                           Love Elder Shumway

New Missionaries!

 When I first arrived in the OKC mission, there were 114 missionaries. When I was still a newer missionary, we moved from 114 to about 124 missionaries.  When I was in Norman, there were some inspired changes made where President Taylor split the mission from 5 zones to 8 zones. He thought that it was better to have less people in each zone so that the ZL's could have more personal ministering opportunities with missionaries in their zones and more proselyting time in their own areas. 

 Little did he know that there would be a flood of 86 new missionaries coming to our mission between Dec 2012 and March 2013. 

  But now President Taylor is relying on the Zone Leaders to help figure out where all these missionaries are going to go. We need 43 new areas to put them in. 43 new apartments. 43 new phones and we need to decide which companionships will have cars / who will have bikes and  which new districts will be formed! 

 It is pretty crazy.  Good things are happening but it is going to be hard work trying to work it all out smoothly.  The mission will have doubled since I came here. We will have about 216 missionaries in the OKC mission by the end of March or April.     I think the Lord is hastening his work.

        We've been working hard with our investigators. Some of them have dropped us and don't want to continue taking the lessons. It is always sad when they do that.

        This transfer ends on Wed. Elder Ali'ifua is getting transferred to Wichita Falls, TX. The same area I served in.  On Wed I will be getting Elder Hanes as a new ZL companion. I know Elder Hanes very well. He was a spanish speaking missionary in Norman when the tornado hit. We helped do clean-up together.  I'm going to miss Elder Ali'ifua. He has taught me a lot. He goes home in about a week and a half to sign his scholarship to play football at Utah State.  You should look for him on TV next year!

       

                  My address is:         2204 S Santa Fe #201

                                                    Moore, OK   73160

-Love Elder Shumway