Week 49

I don't know how closely you've been following Hurricane Sandy, but it's a tropical storm coming up the coastline that is supposed to collide with another front right over New York State. They have already shut down all transportation in NYC. We don't really know for sure how far west it will come, but it could go out as far as Columbus, OH. So President Christianson wanted us all to email our families to let you know that we are safe (they are already getting phone calls from worried moms). We are going straight home from here and will probably stay there until Wednesday late morning. I haven't been able to watch the news, obviously, so all I'm getting of this is word-of-mouth, but I guess better safe than sorry.

The week has been fabulous. Melissa and Patrick came to a baptism that the YSA branch had Saturday, and they were really touched. Both they and Scott actually live in the Buffalo ward, so we had to see if we could transition them this week (we were so sad!) Melissa and Patrick said they will try attending the other ward, but we are going to keep teaching them for the next couple of weeks until then (this coming weekend is stake conference), and Scott said he preferred to stay in this ward at least until he is more sure about being baptized. So we still get to teach him too. :) The Primary program was Sunday and it was excellent. :) I love hearing pure and simple truth from the mouth of babes. They bring the Spirit so strongly! Michael said he'd come to a fireside with us yesterday, but ended up having to take his dad to the hospital... we're sad he missed it, but excited he had a desire to come! (He takes his mom to Catholic mass every Sunday at the same time as our church...)

Our ward is so awesome at missionary work. We've been working with ward members a lot more recently and a few have friends they want us to meet this week. :) We had our ward Halloween party Saturday night, and it was AWESOME. I met probably 12-15 nonmembers and less-active members I'd never met before, and was able to introduce a few who are usually hit-and-miss to Sister McManama. About half a dozen families brought nonmember friends to introduce to the missionaries. That party was probably the busiest 2 hours of my week! We have a lot of ward members to follow up with now. :) Working closely with ward members really is the key! President Christianson actually told us recently he wants us to pretty much phase out tracting and spend as much time as possible working with members and less-actives. We are seeing lots of success as we work to do so.

We also had a great training meeting with Buffalo & Rochester zones last week. President Christianson gave an AWESOME training on the gathering of the House of Israel, and our role as children of Abraham. Each of us who have joined in the Abrahamic Covenant have a joint responsibility to gather in Israel's descendants, those with "believing blood." It really changed my perspective on what it means to find "them that will receive you" (D&C 42:8). He's also talked a lot lately about D&C 88:73 in connection with the recent missionary announcement. "Behold, I will hasten my work in it's time." It is so exciting to be a part of God's work in this time when his gospel is spreading with more urgency than ever before. I am grateful every day for the honor and privilege to be a part of it.

I love you all, and pray for you many times each day. Thanks for all of your love and prayers.

XOXO/ Sister Schank

Week 48

Family!! It has been a really great week. Sister McManama is AWESOME and we have been blessed with a lot of work to keep us busy! My health is doing pretty good, I've been off meds recently because my stomach is behaving itself most of the time, and I'm mostly over the coughing, just some annoying sniffles left. I guess the best way to summarize the last week would be to talk about each of the people we've worked with and how they're doing. Whirlwind version:

Patrick and Melissa- unmarried couple, walked into church a few weeks ago (with a coworker whose daughter is a member of the Young Single Adult ward). Have now come to 3 sacrament meetings in a row and they brought his kids (Aiden-8, Isabelle-10) yesterday. We asked last week if they wanted to learn more and they said YES but that they were really busy this last week. We are teaching their whole family tonight!! They don't live in our boundaries, so still trying to figure out if we can keep teaching them or if the stake president will make them move to the Buffalo ward. Neither of us have ever taught a whole family before on my mission, and we are so excited.

Scott- Believe it or not, he actually also walked into church the same day as Patrick and Melissa. And he also lives in Buffalo ward's boundaries :( We've taught him 3 times now and he is AWESOME. He has a lot of knowledge but is working on building his faith. He actually walked in because he wants to make things right with a new member in Rochester stake he has wronged. The Spirit is so strong when we teach him, and he has a lot of questions that are very to-the-point, but he is okay with the fact that we can't know everything right off. His faith is building and it is amazing how much of the love of God we feel for him as we teach. He was uncomfortable praying the first time we met with him, but by the second meeting he'd read like 100 pages of the Book of Mormon and immediately accepted the invitation to say the closing prayer. By the third time (3 days later), his prayers sounded much more comfortable and he is starting to feel like Someone is listening. We have invited him to be baptized and resolved a concern he brought up, but still don't have a date with him (yet).

Lakesha- She has been super busy recently so Sis McManama actually hasn't met her yet, but we had an amazing lessons with her last weekend and she came to church!! And said she'd be back. She's in her last year of dental hygiene school, but is recognizing that the Lord helped her with her schoolwork this past week because she took the time to come to church. She has a 4-year-old Malachi who came with her, and she is talking to Malachi's dad and her sister about meeting with missionaries. She really considers what we teach, asks great questions, and accepts almost everything we teach immediately because she can recognize the Spirit testifying of truth.

Julie- She is a recent convert's sister and we've been teaching her and her two older kids. Turns out their dad isn't comfortable with us teaching the kids, but they are coming to the ward Halloween party and Primary program this weekend so we will still see them around AND Julie still wants us to teach her. :)

Mamie- I think I talked about her and her husband Lewis last week... She was really progressing after two meetings and then we went to the third one and realized that Lewis isn't the only one suffering from dementia :( So we're not teaching her anymore. We stopped by for a final appointment that we had already set up and she was already asleep but it was perfect because just as we knocked her daughter pulled up. She's really busy right now but potentially interested and we were able to give her a Finding Faith in Chirst DVD and our number. We did some contacting during that hour instead and set up a first appointment with former investigator and exchanged info with another man who wants us to call him this week. Tender mercies :)

Ursula- has been excommunicated for like 20 years but got rebaptized last Saturday!! Her baptism was very small, only the people participating were invited (we accompanied/conducted), but the Spirit was VERY strong. Her whole family was so happy, even those who are not members right now and it strengthened my own testimony of repentance and forgiveness in my life and the lives of others. Ursula is in her early 80s I think and came to America during WWII from Germany. She is so sweet and I was very grateful to be a part of that night.

I think that's most of the exciting news this week. We also had a little booth at a stake family history fair this past weekend. There were like 200 people there and most of them weren't members of our church. We met a lot of really nice people. :) I know I keep promising pictures but I forgot my cord this week... it will happen, eventually. I love you all and hope all is well. I pray for each of you all the time! <3

Sister Schank

Week 47

Hey friends and family,

Well let's start with the big news... transfer calls were last night! I'm staying, but Sis Brown is leaving me to go to Henrietta (a suburb of Rochester). My new comp will be Sis McManama, who is very cool. She came out 6 weeks after me, and we went on exchange once... and this is going to be a sweet couple of transfers :) The area is doing great. We started teaching an older woman named Mamie this week... she actually reminds me of the female version of Grandpa Clyde in a lot of ways. Her husband Lewis sits in, but he can't really see or hear us very well and it seems like he has some form of dementia. They are both really nice. :) We also got to teach Lakesha the Plan of Salvation this week... she is the dental hygiene student. She is super overwhelmed and busy and almost cancelled our appointment but we rearranged some things and the lesson went AWESOME and she came to church(!!) yesterday and really loved it. She has a 4-year-old named Malachi who is so cute and well-behaved and might even be in the Primary program in a couple of weeks. We don't have a return appointment with her because she's so busy, but she said she'll definitely be back at church and we promised her that by coming, the Lord would bless her to be able to juggle everything and with help on her tests this week. Pray for her!

We are on a little bit of a time crunch today because we went to the temple (90 min away) this morning and Sis Brown needs to pack and stuff, but I will for sure try to send pictures next week!  I love this quote by Pres Eyring from last conference: "The Lord’s delays often seem long; some last a lifetime. But they are always calculated to bless."

Love you all!
Sister Schank

Week 46

I missed my family this conference weekend.  However, I am SO grateful to have a family who loves hearing the prophet speak. And even though I've missed you, I'm also incredibly grateful to be serving the Lord out here. It's been a crazy week; EVERYONE in western NY it seems has been sick, including me. We had a TON of great appointments this week, and a whole day cancelled on us because of sickness. Of course I got sick the day after anyway, but we still had a full week of appointments and conference so I have been on lots of pseudaphed and ibuprofen and I'm on the mend by now :) It has been awesome to see the blessings in our area this week. We had the opportunity to teach a lot of investigators for either the first time or one of the first and it has been a huge blessing for me to be able to testify of the atonement and the restoration of Jesus Christ's gospel over and over again. Being a missionary really is the coolest <3 General conference was awesome; we actually had a new investigator named Jack at the first session with us which was sweet, especially with Elder Nelson's talk and also the talk by the 70 member that was on the Holy Ghost. We literally haven't even taught Jack the restoration yet (he was a sick cancellation last week), but he'd been taught years ago. He used to be a JW and has some confusions about the Godhead, and had asked about the Holy Ghost right before conference started. Whether or not he realized, I'm confident that talk was for him. My personal favorite talk I think was given in the Sunday afternoon session about faith... the one where he talked about Ann Jewel Rowley. Wasn't that cool? It reminded me how much faith she had... faith enough to perform a miracle! We wouldn't be here if her whole family had starved, but she had the simple faith that allowed Heavenly Father to feed her family, and I know that we can too. :) We also started teaching a woman named Lakesha this Saturday between conference sessions, and she is really searching and is excited to come to church with her little family next week! (She has a 4-year-old named Malachi and then Malachi's dad.) I never realized until maybe a month or two ago how many people have honestly never even thought about the fact that there could be a religion on Earth that contained 100% of the truth. She  hasn't been attending any church for about 4 years because she moved and there isn't a big Baptist congregation right now... they are in between preachers or something like that. I'm so grateful that this church is true no matter where you are! Running out of time, but the last person we taught this week that was new is named Scott... he knows about a lot of religions but doesn't have much real faith of his own, and is looking to make amends for some wrong he has done. We had a beautiful lesson last night with a couple from the ward about the healing that comes through the atonement of Jesus Christ. i am so excited for him to come to understand and apply that doctrine in his own life. He just turned 30 and this would make such a difference for his future.

I love you all so much and hope to hear from you often. Have an excellent week!

Love,
Sister Schank

Week 45

This. Week. Has. Been. Awesome. Don't get me wrong, we had days when it rained and all of our appointments cancelled, but we have seen miracles like crazy and the Spirit has been so strong. We are trying so hard to work with members in our ward and we got a couple of member referrals this week... the first was a sister-in-law named Julie and she had just been talking to her husband a few days before we knocked on her door about how they needed to find a church again. She has 3 kids and they LOVE us (the oldest is 8), and we are going back! The second was just an acquaintance from school who was interested in how her cohort had visiting teachers, and she said she'd love to  have two women sent to her to talk with her about Jesus. :) She is really searching to love and forgive and to learn more about Christ's gospel. Her English name is Stella (she's Korean). We found a FOURTH investigator yesterday at church... we literally had 5 people in 3 different groups walk into church who we didn't expect yesterday. We had only met one of them before. All but one have good connections with a member so we will hopefully be able to teach them soon. It was the other we set up an appointment with... his name is Scott and he is just searching to make some things right that he has done. It was cool to be able to testify of the Atonement to him and to see the hope in his eyes. We are teaching him at a member's home this week. :)

Also, Bill's baptism was on Saturday! It was amazing. We sung I Stand All Amazed for the opening hymn and he just started crying. Me too. The Spirit was very powerful. After the ordinance, he changed into dry clothes and the first thing he said was "I did it!" He was glowing :) It has been amazing to see how the Spirit has changed this 82-year-old man. The Primary children provided the musical number which was so cute, and the prayers were offered by an investigator and a less-active member who is recently returning to church. It was so relieving to see everything fall into place; the night before the baptism Bill had lost his phone and his car was in the shop... we had felt like we should drop by and we're REALLY glad we did because I don't know how he would have gotten to the church if we hadn't known to call a member for a ride. He was confirmed in church yesterday which was also really special. I'm excited to see him progress in the priesthood, and he is already excited to hold a calling. :)

THEN, there was the relief society broadcast. The Stake RS put on a huge activity and dinner from 5-8 before the broadcast, in true RS form. It was incredible how many hours must have gone into this thing. Pretty much no one we invited ended up showing, but there were a couple of less-actives who came and they were fellow-shipped and clearly touched. I am really going to like this new general RS presidency; they talked about families, covenants, and the power of the atonement and really brought the Spirit. All of my favorite things :)

Let's see, other miracles... oh, remember Paul? He's the one who is halfway done with the Book of Mormon already... we set a baptismal date with him! He's shooting for Oct 27. :) We haven't taught the Word of Wisdom yet, so we may have to push it back if that's a big problem, but having a goal to work toward does wonders in helping investigators to progress. We also knocked on a former investigator named Jack's door for the umpteenth time and he not only opened the door but invited us right in! We didn't have another female with us and he's a single guy so we had to make another appointment rather than teach him on the spot, but it sounds like missionaries just had a hard time getting in touch with him for awhile and he slipped through the cracks. He is excited to be taught. :)

That is going to have to be it for this week. Give Kenny lots of hugs for me! Love you, Elder! <3 The rest of you, too ;)

I love you a million bucks!
Sister Schank