April 22, 2013 Out in the Community

Dear Mom and Dad,

This past week again flew by.We were able to teach more this week and we were able to meet a lot of great people. There was a lady who we met on her neighborhood pathway who had just moved there from an apartment complex. She has never even heard anything about the LDS church or the Book of Mormon. She was very excited to have us back sometime this week to teach more about the restoration. The was also a guy who was outside as we were passing by his home who was very kind and was excited to see us. He too has a great family and we should be working with  them soon. Elder Hansen and I have been praying for opportunities to find families that will be able to progress in the gospel. We will be working hard to teach them and will definitely make sure to have well prepared lessons when we teach.

This weekend in Highland Village there was a community garage sale so there were quite a few people outside in the main neighborhood. We went around talking with people on the street and basically window shopped and surprisingly we had multiple doctrinal conversations with the home owners who out of all of them they approached us and asked questions. One guy even invited us over for a dinner he was putting on for his company Sunday evening. It however did not turn out as expected and was actually was a party for amazingly wealthy people who worked for him. We ended up leaving quickly, reviewed our plans for the evening and went out. It was a sad thing to see that this guy and his workers had all the joy the world could bring them, but we could tell they all lacked something. There were actually  3 people there from around the U.S. that really made it easy to leave. Anyway, it was a great thing that we were able to learn from and it felt so good to choose the right.

That is very exciting about your classes dad. I will make sure to keep you and our family in my prayers. The Book of Mormon reading sounds like a wonderful thing and will really bless the ward and the members spiritual health. I have definitely seen the positive effects of daily scripture study.  It really helps me to stay motivated during the day and really helps me to have the armor of God to protect me. I have not heard anything about the explosions yet. I heard from Amy that Uncle Matt is alright though.

This Sunday we had a member from the high council speak. He shared an great drawing analogy that really helped explain that everyone make mistakes and that those mistakes can be overcome. I wrote it in my study journal and took a picture so you could see it.(sorry i cannot get the picture to attach i will send it next week) Also as I was reading the scriptures this week 3 Nephi ch 20: 1 was the scripture that stood out to me that I wanted to share with y'all this week. It reads:

 1 And it came to pass that he commanded the multitude that they should ^acease to ^bpray, and also his disciples. And he commanded them that they should not cease to pray in their hearts.

After i read this i pondered on what would need to be done to always have a prayer in my heart. It lead me to many different things i could do but ultimately it helped me to make sure i was always great full through the day and it really helped me to look at things different and do things the way the lord would have me do it.

I Love y'all so much and I will make sure to keep you in my prayers

Love Elder Shoemaker

P.S. We helped a part member family move some stuff in their home around so workers could come in and paint. The member had a HD GoPro camera that the were trying to get rid of.  I asked how much for it and they gave it to me! Wow. It is pretty cool.