Happy Easter 4-1-13

Dear Mom and Dad,

 

It sure is starting to get warmer here. Although, when we went out to exercise this morning it was pretty chilly, but by 10 it warmed up a bit. We currently do not have an air conditioner but it has not been too hot yet, either way I am sure there are missionaries in another country that will never have air conditioning and sleep in hot conditions their whole mission. I am not going to lie though, the heat is not as bad as I expected. I actually got cold this year as the heat thinned my blood.  Ha ha. Also, the Texas blue bonnets are starting to sprout and are about to flower so you should expect a picture of them next week. Interesting thing is you can get in trouble for picking them as they are the state flower and people here take pride in the blue bonnets.

 

Enough about the weather, we found out this week that we will be having an Apostle come on May 4th and he will be visiting in the Lewisville Stake so we as a mission will be able to hear him speak and since Elder Hansen and I will be staying together this next transfer, we will be here for the stake Conference that the Apostle will be a part of too! I am excited. Not sure who it will be yet but I will let you know.

 

This past week using a successful week chart that President Sagers gave us (I may have mentioned it last week) has been great. The chart gives us things that we can do to measure and see how successful we are making our weeks. This morning I personalized a Book of Mormon as part of what I can do to make the week more successful. I am excited to see who it will be for. This week there were two more baptisms in our zone, so it was exciting to see how the missionaries who had taught these people made changes in there work and received the blessings from doing so.

 

Congratulations on the Badger Mountain Challenge.  The plants look so green in the picture. It sounds like all y'all have some good projects ahead for this week. Hope you enjoy the wonderful spring break and good luck in track Justin

 

Love,

 

Elder Shoemaker

 

p.s. This Sunday we had a wonderful lesson on redemption in coordination with Easter. The Sunday School teacher taught about the two parts of redemption. One, the resurrection of our savior Jesus Christ -that it's so widely celebrated and is very important, and two, the Atonement and suffering in the Garden of Gesthemane that is not as widely celebrated. The Savior was resurrected, allowing us to overcome physical death 2 nephi 9:22  and he atoned in the garden allowing us to overcome spiritual death 2 Nephi 9:23.