January 12, 2012

Family,
I am officially companionless. Brother Enriquez went home yesterday to spend some time with his family before he leaves for the MTC on Saturday. I loved him so much. In the short 14 days that we were companions he became my favorite. We had so much success together and became really close.
This last week has been really successful. We were able to teach 24 lessons, 19 of which were Recent Convert & Reactivation. That is a huge improvement over last weeks 13 lessons. It was so nice to have a companion and a list of people to teach. I am seeing the first fruits of completing families. In one family in our ward, the Mata family, everyone was baptized besides the two oldest daughters, one who was planning to be baptized with her family but hadn't come to church enough times, and the other just wasn't interested. She had actually told the missionaries once that she just didn't want to get baptized. When we met her yesterday she had no desire to listen and was pretending to be sleeping on the floor and almost wouldn't even talk to us. By the end of the lesson she was sitting up and participating in reading and answering questions and at the very end we committed them both for baptism! That is just one more miracle I have seen in the weeks since I have been here in Capitol. I have been thinking a lot about all of the miracles I am seeing every day here and this afternoon remembered a line in my patriarchal blessing that says that I will see many wonders in preparing the world for the second coming of Jesus Christ and establishing Zion. I realized that each miracle I see in the mission is a fulfillment of that promised blessing. I have been seeing miracles every day in the last weeks. I love being a missionary.
Ask Winston Baring what his father’s name is. I have a very low chance of getting assigned in Lapu Lapu where he lives because I have had four areas in the two surrounding zones. I could refer his father to the missionaries working there too. Also give an address.
The two Americans I am living with are Elder Gertge from Ogden Utah and Elder Parkinson from Rexburg Idaho. We have really been getting into buying ties and trading them. Last week Elder Gertge came home from Pday with 10 new ties from an ukay ukay (second hand clothes imported from other countries). He got them all for about $5! That has been fun. I have given away almost all of my good ties so I have to get some new ones.
I am getting excited to see the North Wing when I get home. It looks really good in the pictures. Nice work Dad.
Love you all, Take care!
Elder Schenk