General Conference

SO... is Tanner going to go on a mission right after high school?  That is the craziest thing I've ever heard announced in General Conference. Is Sheralyn going to go on a mission? Or is she going to get married?

       I loved Elder Eyring's talk in the Priesthood session. It helped me know some other methods of helping others as a leader.  I also loved Elder Hollands talk. He always uses the Bible and I think that is awesome!

       I recieved permission on Saturday to go to the baptism of one of the investigators I had started teaching in Norman.  She was the investigator we had that had a tornado go right through her apartment comlpex. She also had to wait for her LA member boyfriend to get divorced and active and married to her.  So it took a long time.   Since I was with Elder Guinto until now.   

When I showed up to the baptism, I noticed that my name was on the program to give a talk on baptism. No one had told me about that. Hahaha!   but luckily I had studied repentance and baptism in PMG that morning.  I gave a nice, short talk before she was baptized.   

I loved my short visit in Norman. I was able to see many of the great members in the Norman 2nd ward. I love that ward.   I was able to talk to Brother N. I helped his wife get baptized when I was in Norman.  I love that family and I could see the Love all over his face when we recognized each other.  It gave me a small glimpse of how the Gospel brings people together in unity. Especially when you work hard together to help someone make changes in their lives, repent, and follow the Savior's example.   Our mission has been focusing on finding and baptizing families and future families and I feel very accomplished because Brother & Sister N. just had a baby girl. He showed me pictures of her. It was AWESOME.

       Elder Ali'ifua and I are having a lot of fun together. He goes home in about 6 weeks so we've got to work hard for the last bit of his missionary life.

       The weather has cooled way down. It is actually cold now. This morning there was Ice on the windows of the cars.  

       I've been sick for the last couple of days too. It's not fun.  Hopefully I get over it soon. I think this is the first time I've ever been sick on my mission though.

      

    -Love Elder Shumway

       I was transfered to Moore OK. It is a city that has been nailed by many tornadoes  Including the famous May 3rd Tornado. This city is blended in with the South part of the growing Oklahoma City.  Elder Ali'ifua and I are the zone Leaders for the South Zone. Elder Ali'ifua is Polynesian and the most MASSIVE elder in our mission. When he goes home he will play football for Utah State. I think we will have fun together.

     Our mission has emphasized finding Families and future families. When Elder Callister came and gave a training, he said "Go to the mini-vans!"   We focus on finding families and future families.  We cover a ward and a singles branch. The family ward starts at 9 and we leave a little early to go up to Midwest City where the singles branch starts at 12. I've never been to a singles ward or branch before. It is super fun to be a missionary there.  We had a baptism yesterday in the singles branch. It was great! 

       A cool miracle happened on Saturday. We returned a missed call from an unknown number Saturday night while we were planning. Andy, the young man on the other end of the line said to us  "I'm thinking about converting."   We were shocked to hear this. People don't just come to you and ask to get baptized. You have to go out and find them. So this was a huge shock to us. We invited him to church and arranged a ride for him. The members of the singles ward are great member missionaries.  Andy came to church and stayed for the baptism afterwards. We called him that night to ask him how he liked church and he said that he loved it and that it was better than any other church he had ever been to. We felt like we should set a baptism date with him over the phone right there....so we did.  He has a baptismal date for Oct 28. The Lord Has blessed us.

               Love Elder Shumway

Happy and Working HARD!

I've been a lot happier while on my mission. I've found lots of joy that comes from the "little" things in life. You don't have to listen to cool music to be happy or drink beer or do whatever people do nowadays to be happy.  I don't do any of those things and I'm the happiest I've ever been! It's cool. 

   

If we apply the principles of the doctrine of Christ, we can change our desires to be more similar to the Lord's. This happens through the power of the atonement. If you live the gospel, you are happy. We should never let our agency take over.  One cool thing about living the doctine of Christ is that it brings OUR will in line with the Lord's will. Plus we are blessed as we do these things. I think I've been blessed a lot.  

      Elder Cobbley and I have been working pretty hard. We've been having lots of success. We have been inviting more people to be baptized and now we have three baptismal dates set with people.

       

   There was a cool thing that happened yesterday.  Each week we do a planning session for the whole week ahead of us. We set goals in faith and make our plans to achieve those goals. So last Thursday we set a goal to find 4 new investigators. By the time Saturday ended, we had found four new investigators but when we planned for Sunday, we didn't want to set a goal to find zero investigators so we planned to tract so we could find one. 

   

     So we were tracting yesterday and were having a hard time talking to people. (There were some NFL games on that people are more interested in.)   We were just walking down the street trying to feel where we should go to accomplish our goal.  We each had a prayer in our hearts looking for direction to find this person.   As we walked down another block, we saw a car in a driveway that stuck out to both of us. Elder Cobbley jokingly said  "This house will be our new investigator."     So we knocked on the door. A large, old man came out and immediately knew who we were.  He called us his "Mormon friends." As we talked to him, we found that he had almost joined the church when he was younger but didn't because his Grandpa, who he was living with at the time wouldn't let him.    We prayed with him and we have an appointment to come back and teach him.

       .....And we were able to meet the goal we had set for that day.

      I think it is a cool story. There is a lot to be learned from it too.

Love,

Elder Shumway

A Wild Week

 Just last night we knocked on a door and a lady answered. We did our door approach and then she asked "Are you part of Mitt Romney's campain?"   Of course we told her no, but then she just turned around, walked back inside and shut the door.  Ya, we get political feedback every now and then. I think usually the people who don't like Romney always bring it up.

   This week is a lot cooler than it has been. It's a nice 96 degrees out. I never thought that I would think it was cooler.  I miss the good old 60 degree weather in Oregon...with some nice, sprinkly rain. I could use some of that sometime soon.

    Our zone had four people baptized on Saturday. It was awesome!! Zone leaders report numbers every Sunday night. Things like how many new investigators found, less actives at church, baptism dates and who was actually baptized.  Last night I was talking to the spanish district leader about the baptism dates in his district. He told me that one of their dates had dropped because one of their investigators broke up with her boyfriend who is also an investigator. No one knows where she went. Mexicans get in family arguments easily. She must have told her family something bad about him, because some drunk Mexicans drove by him a couple nights ago trying to shoot him. He got shot all the way through his shoulder. He is still alive, and he still has a baptism date.   But Satan is trying to get him.  It's a crazy story huh?

    The south side of OKC is super ghetto. There are a lot of gangs there and trigger-happy Mexicans.   Only a tiny bit of the south is in our area.

    On Friday night we recieved a call fron the assistants telling us that there was a lady in one of the hospitals in our area who wanted us to give a blessing to her step son. We showed up and met her in the ER waiting area. Her son had been involded in a car wreck. The car he was in swerved, rolled 6 times and was hit by a semi.

 We had to wait two hours for the doctors to let us know when we could go in to see him. Finally we were able to see him and give him a blessing. His head had been damaged so badly that we weren't allowed to put our hands on his head. It was a sad sight to see. He was very bloody and had lots of wires and stuff hooked up to him. he had a bolt (like the one frankenstien has) going into his skull.  We put our hands on his arm and gave the blessing.

 His Mom has been texting us and updating us on his health. He went through seven hours of surgery the next morning and the doctors said it was unlikely that he would live, but he is still alive and now they are saying that he might walk out of the hospital when he's better.  Isn't that crazy?!

  

   Love Elder Shumway

Military Church

  This week we had an LTM (Leadership Training Mtg)  Tues through Fri. It was from 9 am to 4 pm each day. I learned a lot!!!! It was fun because I was able to see E Naisbitt and E Lott and all my other real close pals in the mission. I am so proud of Elder Lott. He  has been trainning for the last three weeks and I hear that his greeny is super solid. Maybe I will be a great-grandpa soon.  

During the four days of the LTM, Elder Lott's greeny (E Apadale) was running the area in Norman where I served. He was with another new missionary who had been out for about 8 weeks. Together they set 3 new baptism dates in the four days we were at the LTM!

    On Saturday, the Assistants came to pick me up. Each Sunday the AP's go down to Fort Sill army base (just north of Lawton OK) to teach lessons to the members and non-members on the base. They have a sacrament meeting in a big classroom on the base. I went this week to help them teach. E Fransen also went with us. We spent the night at the Lawton ZL's apartment and on Sunday morning we went to the base. 

  It was a cool experience. They have a sacrement meeting that is way laid-back. The group leader (like a branch pres.) wasn't able to get a video to work for the spiritual message of sacrament meeting so he called on us missionaries to give talks! We had like five minutes to think of what we wanted to talk on. I gave my talk on Faith, based off of Alma 32: 21 & 27and James 2: 15.  I felt good about the talk when I was done, especially since it was imprompu.  

After sacrement meeting, the four missionaries each taught a class on our own. I taught the third lesson about the gospel of Christ.  The lesson was very hard to teach to a bunch of non-member army dudes...and they all looked the same with their camo uniforms and buzzed heads. It wasn't the best lesson I've had.

After church there was a baptism for two of the soldiers. I conducted one of the baptism interviews for one of the soldiers. We watched them yell and march in the heat over to another building where the Church of Christ has a nice chapel and a ghetto baptismal font. I was asked to give another unexpected talk on baptism and the Holy Ghost before the baptism. Then they were baptised in the weirdest font I've ever seen. It wasn't even below ground level. It was raised.   Then they were confirmed.  It was a cool Sunday. I enjoyed going to Fort Sill and I will probably go again. 

   

    I hope y'all are doing good.

                -Elder Shumway

My 20th Birthday

I had a great birthday!  Guess what I did!   

I WORKED!!   

I was on an exchange with one of the district leaders, Elder Bleggi, and we biked our butts off all day! He is a good missionary. I think it was about 110 degreese that day with some humidity of course. It was a good birthday. We visited some less-actives who came to church yesterday, we found a new investigator and went to the temple to teach a lesson!

I opened the packeges y'all sent me; I love getting new garments!!  I also like the tie, and the colored pictures and notes from the little cousins, and the chocolate cupcake things and the pens! oh and the white shirts and note pad! I love getting packages!

This week has been the best week since I arrived in this area. We had a member-present lesson with a couple investigators that went very well. We found four new investigators and had four less actives at church. Hopefully we can continue exceeding these numbers.  We need to get more member-present lessons.
We went to the temple on Saturday and as soon as we walked onto the temple grounds the spirit hit Elder Bleggi and I at the same time. It was like a wall! We looked at eachother and knew we were both having the same feeling. It was awesome. I love feeling the spirit strongly.

I've been having a great time on my mission. I realised that I've almost been out a year and it kinda made me sad. I still feel like a new missionary and I don't feel like I've been out a year. Holy Cow, time flies.
    
Love ya'll
                              Elder Shumway

Hauling Hay

I have stopped to think about y'all bucking and hauling hay as I work in this heat. It makes me kind of chuckle. But, at the same time I wish I was helping. Partly because it is awesome and partly because it is not 105 degrees with humidity out there!   

    I was so nervous to be ZL that the day before transfers, while I was packing, I had to relieve myself from diarhea 8 times! (Embarrassing!)

I am alot more comfortable with it now. Elder Andersen is my companion. He is a good guy from Utah.   

    The ward we are in could improve a lot. We have already set goals and made plans to help the area and the zone members also.

      I am good friends with one of the AP's, so I am borrowing his bike for now. Maybe he will let me keep it because he goes home this transfer. His bike is definitely not from wal-mart because it is still in good shape after two years.

 

   My bike was destroyed. I left it in Wichita Falls.... in pieces.   It would be possible to get it back, but it would take a while and I don't think it is worth it. I wish I would've remembered about the two year warranty.

    

          My new address is         

   6438 N Warren, apt. #161

   Oklahoma City, OK 73116    

  My area is like basically downtown OKC. The biggest tower in OKC is in my area and the Chesapeak Arena (The OKC's NBA Thunder stadium) is in my area too. I think the bombing memorial is too.

I'm looking forward to my birthday box! 

Love y'all!

Elder Shumway