March 16

Mom,

Yes, the home is great!

Elder Hozman. He is from Colombia, his parents currently live in Peru because his dad works for the Church and they move around occasionally. He lived in Utah for about a year or two before his mission and learned English then so his English is really good, he just has an accent. We are doing very well together! It's interesting to be with a more fresh missionary. It helps me realize how much I've learned and changed on my mission. He's a great guy, we get along well and are enjoying our missionary service!

Bridgette is in her 40s or 50s and her dad is sick and is likely going to pass away soon and he is in his 70s. So she doesn't need her dad's permission legally, she just wants to respect her father and whatnot. We met with Daniel again and his main hold up right now is that he doesn't really understand the priesthood and the apostasy so we'll have to go over that some more. It's kind of crazy to come to the city for the last little bit of my mission because I kind of feel like I'm starting all over again. Things are just so different from the rez as far as how to work with the ward (as in it's not a branch... hahaha) and just how to best teach investigators and stuff. Sometimes I feel just as lost as I did as a new missionary here, but it's good because it's keeping me on my toes and helping me grow! Albert is doing awesome, he made it to church yesterday! He's such a good guy and has a lot of gospel knowledge. He made some pretty awesome comments during gospel principles and listens to or reads general conference talks all the time at home. 

Awesome! I'm glad those boxes arrived safely. (Brother Collin Warner, who grew up in Layton and currently lives in Blanding, delivered a few boxes for Matt last Saturday.) His work took him and his family to Blanding because he works with the uranium mill there. They haven't been there too long, just like three years I think? They are a really cool family. Yeah, I'll be happy to go through all my junk in my bedroom and declutter it. I think I've gotten better at throwing away unnecessary stuff as a missionary, so hopefully that'll bless me when I get home. 

Geographically speaking in regards to the literal boundaries of the ward, this is probably the largest area I've been in. But we don't really leave Grants or Milan very often, so as far as mileage traveled daily this is definitely not the biggest. Bluff was probably the biggest in terms of daily miles, with Steamboat in second place. Population-wise, it is definitely the largest area I've served in. 

Yeah, the mail is sent to our house and it is checked daily. 

Yes, the members feed us plenty. 

Have an awesome time at conference! I AM SO EXCITED FOR CONFERENCE 

Love, 

Elder Schaelling 

March 9

Mom,

Thanks! I haven't done anything to accept it yet, hopefully I'll get that done today. That's awesome that Spencer's birthday is this week! Yeah, the pictures that I see of them every once in a while they all look super different, I can't believe it! Well, I guess I can believe it. I've been gone for a while haha.

I guess technically the June 24th is an estimate, but I can't imagine it being a different day because the process is the same every transfer. Everyone moves areas on Tuesday, and so all of the departing missionaries go to the mission home at 2 o'clock and have a testimony meeting and dinner with President and Sister Batt and whatnot and then we all sleep at the assistant's house on Tuesday night and depart Wednesday morning. And the transfer ends that week. You'll probably get a letter from the mission office about three months before my release date.

I hope to be able to learn a lot more about Meme and all of my family history when I get home. I want to start a project and do a lot more family history when I get home, I just plan on making it an every Sunday thing while I'm living at home and I'll work on it whenever I come home for the weekends while I'm at college.

We saw Bridgette on Monday night and she said that her dad, who is a very staunch Catholic, told her that she can't change religions and but she said that she feels like she needs to learn more about the Book of Mormon and whatnot and so we had an appointment set up but it fell through and we haven't been able to catch her when we've just stopped by, unfortunately. We were able to find three new investigators this week though: Daniel, Nancy, and Thomas. They are all pretty awesome people and we hope things go well for all of them!

One pretty awesome experience that I had this week was the opportunity to give a blessing to a member who is currently disfellowshipped and has been for 18 years, but he is such an awesome and faithful guy. He still pays his tithing without fail and everything. I'll refer to him as Albert. On Saturday evening we saw the bishop for a minute and asked him if anyone was on his mind that he'd like us to visit on his mind and he mentioned Albert and so we stopped by at about 8 o'clock and when he opened the door he said, "Oh boy do I need you two here right now. Please come in, I need a blessing." He told us that he resigned from his job a couple days before and he isn't sure if it was the right thing to do or not and he's trying to understand what the Lord needs him to do and he was told by the doctor that if he doesn't quit smoking his lungs will give out on him and also if he can quit smoking then he can regain his full fellowship in the Church. We gave him a blessing to help him feel comfort and also to be able to quit smoking and there are only two blessings I've given in my life where I have felt the Spirit so strongly, this one and one I gave in Shiprock a few weeks before Christmas. It's one of those blessings where I could just feel the words flowing through me from the Spirit, and really from our Father in Heaven. It wasn't terribly long, but was very powerful and just a great faith building experience. I know the Priesthood is real, and that as we are worthy we may act in place of the Lord.

I just read a book this past week, it's called The Power of Everyday Missionaries by Clayton R. Christensen. IT IS AMAZING! SERIOUSLY, EVERYONE WHO SEES THIS NEEDS TO READ THAT BOOK. It is like Preach My Gospel for members, and it's a pretty quick read. It's only like 130 pages or something and the pages aren't long at all. It's filled with gold as far as how to find people for the missionaries to teach, how to help others progress in the gospel and everything. That book helped me increase my faith so much and made me have such a stronger desire to share the gospel even as a missionary and to take my calling more seriously and try to share the gospel with every person I talk to.

Yeah, there's just one ward. It's called the Mt. Taylor Ward and it covers Grants, Milan, Bluewater, and San Rafel. We technically cover San Mateo also but it's really far away and we never go there. No, there is not any other missionaries in Grants, the next ones over are Thoreau which is about 30 miles away. We live alone and we have a bedroom, a study room, a bathroom, a very large living room, and a kitchen. It's pretty nice.

I love you all!

Elder Schaelling 

March 2

My questions for Matt:

1) Did Elder Vicznesky return home?  His Mom had told me that he was coming home on  February 25.

2) How was your actual move to Grants?  

3) Did you stop in Farmington on your way?

4) How did you handle being on the interstate again?  Were you the driver?

5) How is Elder Hozman and is he truly from Peru?

6) Are you in a home or an apartment?  I looked your address up on the internet and the only picture they had looked like a small apartment building.  Somewhere else it said that the property had a duplex and a small home on the lot.

7) The address you gave us was 226 Monroe, Grants NM  87020.  Is there any number or letter that we should add to that for clarification?

8) Do you still have a vehicle and, if so, what is it?

---------------

Mom,

I am doing well in Grants! That's exciting that Quin got his mission call! I think that sounds like a pretty awesome mission. I hope the best for him and I guess I'll see him in about two years!

1) Yes, he did. I don't have too many details about it, but he packed his bags and left for home last week. 

2) The move wasn't too bad, it just took a while due to the weather and snow we were having. I drove to Farmington on Monday night and then rode the transfer van to Gallup on Tuesday and Elder Hozman picked me up there and we drove to Grants and got here in the afternoon! I am the designated driver and one thing that I needed to be reminded of is about how to merge onto the freeway and the importance of reaching the speed limit before you get to the merging point... haha. Also, the interstate has a speed limit of 75 which is kind of crazy. 

3) Yes, I did. 

5) Elder Hozman is from Colombia but he moved to Utah about two years ago to go to the University of Utah and the confusion with Peru is that his parents are now living in Peru because his dad works for the Church. He's a good guy, he speaks pretty good English but he has a bit of an accent which makes him a little difficult to understand for some others, but I understand him just fine. 

6) I am in a home and it's pretty nice. We have a lot of space. 

7) Nope, just the address. 

8) We have a Nissan Frontier just like we did in Blanding but it is a 2015 instead of a 2014. Not much of a different, just the dash is slightly different.

No worries, I got an email from BYU today that referred me to the website with the decision and I have been admitted! 

Yeah, I'm sad that I wont be able to see Jim and Chris and everyone else get baptized, but that's just how missionary work goes I guess. We have a pretty awesome new investigator named Bridgette here in Grants. We found her tracting the other day and we taught her and committed her to be baptized on April 11th! She said she would come to church yesterday but didn't make it so we are going to stop by today or tomorrow and see what's going on. We also are teaching a lady from the Philippines and committed her to April 18th and brought a member of the ward who served his mission in the Philippines so it was pretty cool. Grants seems pretty awesome, but it is differently VERY different from anywhere else I've served. There's not as many natives here as there was in Blanding or other cities in our mission, it's more of a New Mexico/Latino town. But we have our own Walmart and tons of stuff, so that's pretty awesome. This is the first time I have ever had a Walmart in my zone, let alone my area haha. The ward is pretty good sized and very nice, so hopefully we'll be able to get some good work rolling along!

Sounds like everything is going well at home! Good luck to Aimee with her campaign, it is pretty hard to believe that that time is here already. Years fly by pretty quickly! 

I love you all and I know that this gospel is true! It's been pretty awesome to be here in Grants because a lot of the members of the ward are converts who have joined the church and stayed fully active throughout their life! It's pretty different because the only places I have served is on the rez and then in Blanding which is just a small Mormon town, so being here it feels like I'm in the "real mission field" or something. I don't know how to describe it haha. I guess it just seems more like what I imagined a mission would be like before my mission, because thus far I haven't had any areas that I could have predicted before my mission. There's not a real big presence of the Church here, pretty much everyone is Catholic and I've been able to meet some pretty awesome members of the Church who are converts and are still very committed to the Church and the Gospel!

Love, 

Elder Schaelling