Week 10: "Somebody call IXII!!!!"

HOLA FAMILIA!!!! y amigos :)

Como estan?! La vida en buena in la KWM! Esta semana pasada fue super bien! haha yeah it was pretty good :

:)

I have some apologies to make. First and most importantly, DAD. I am SO sorry I forgot to tell you HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! in my email last week. :( Please know I was thinking about you on Thursday and I hope you had such a wonderful birthday :) And Linsey and Stephen and Carly and John, if I am remembering correctly - HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!! (last week). AND thank you to everyone who sent me a letter last week: Mom - and Mom and Dad, the package was wonderful, thank you :), Ramsay Hatch, Rizek Housari, and Eric Schofield. Thank you! I love letters! And this just past week, thank you Cara Shumway and Sam Alger for the letters! Sam has been called to the Michigan Detroit Mission, Spanish speaking!! Congrats Sam! :)

So. I know this subject isn't a title to a song, but I think quotes are funnier than song titles...soooo we may just have to go with that instead of song titles. Maybe I'll do both. I dunno. haha this quote is from Hercules!! I said it this week and Sister Hymas DIED laughing because she never realized what it was actually saying!! It was pretty funny.

BUT it also really fits this week!

We did some car crash contacting this week. We thought it would be pretty successful ;) And it was!!! Yes, we got in a car crash. No worries, we're fine :) AND we got a referral for the English Elders through it! Miracles are everywhere! The coolest part of it was that the first thing he said was "Oh I'm so glad I ran into Christians!" we kinda laughed it off and didn't really try to teach him anything, but then he said it again and we decided to give him a Mormon.org card! And GUESS WHAT?! He went to and LDS church a couple times when he was a teenager and really enjoyed it. "Coincidence...? I think NOT!" haha it was pretty cool :) We hope we can see him progress from a distance :) haha I'll attach some pictures of that.

I want to share a little experience I had with the Spirit this week that was SO cool so I'm super excited to tell you about it!! Okay. So. We have been talking a lot as a companionship and as a zone and probably as a whole mission about following every prompting we receive from the Spirit. I have personally been working on recognizing those promptings, first of all, and then immediately heeding them. So. We were trying to contact one of our investigators who has been kind of MIA lately, she wasn't home, so we decided to knock a random door. We started talking to this young man named Chad. We got to talkin a little bit and we shared a few truths of the Gospel as they related, but there was a point in time when he just was talking and explaining something for a really long time. It was the MOST interesting thing. I couldn't understand him. I couldn't connect any of his ideas in my mind. I even asked myself at one point if he was speaking Spanish and if that's why I couldn't really get anything from what he was saying - but, he was definitely speaking English. It was the oddest thing. And I remember in the moment thinking that I didn't have the Spirit BECAUSE I couldn't understand what he was talking about and figure out how to teach him. Sister Hymas wasn't feeling good about the situation either. So we gave him a Mormon.org card and scurried back to the car. I just could NOT figure out what had just happened! As I was talking to Sister Hymas about it in the car, something told me "You couldn't understand because I was protecting you from things that weren't true." When I got that thought I was shocked. It was the coolest thing. And I know that that thought was from the Spirit. I DID have the Spirit, and it was working FULL time during our conversation with Chad. 

I have always known that the Spirit testifies of truth, but I had never experienced the opposite! It was such an amazing experience. I am just so grateful for the Spirit. It can protect us from danger and from all the attacks that Satan throws at us. What a wonderful gift our loving Heavenly Father has given us. I pray that I can continually live my life during and after my mission to be worthy of the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. How badly we need his guidance and protection.

Another great thought from the conference talk i read this morning: "The Gospel isn't weight, it's wings."

Oh I love this gospel of Jesus Christ. How blessed I am to be able to talk to people about the greatest blessing in my life all day every single day.

It's a good day to be a missionary :)

I love you all so much. Thank you for your continued prayers, love and support.

Con todo mi corazon y mi amor,

Hermana Shumway

Q&A:

You said you will be in Topeka for 10 weeks, will you change companions? I will most likely be with Sister Hymas for the next 10 weeks or so, BUT it is also possible for me to have 2 different trainers - I have even heard of people having 3!! different trainers! Soooo I dunno! I guess we shall see :)

When do you meet with other missionaries? We have had 2 big zone meetings - one with Pres. Bell and the Assistants and the other one with just our zone leaders. We have district meetings every Tuesday and we all go to church in the same building so we see people in our district all the time! It's very fun :) We have only gone on "splits" when we have gone on exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders (the girl version of Zone Leaders).

Do you have iPads? - not yet. We were going to get them as a mission at the end of the summer, but now I think the word is the end of the year...sooo we'll see if it actually happens :)

Do you have a car or walk, bike? We are full-time car, but this week our car has to go into the shop for some repairs sooo that will be interesting because we don't have bikes sooo hopefully we can get some members from other wards to help us out so we can get things done that we need to.

Eat anything new?...hmmm I don't think so. BUT we are going to have menudo on Saturday and I'm pretty nervous about that.

I heard the skies are gray.  Skies gray...uhhh I don't think so...? Just when it's cloudy? hahaha obviously :)

What do you do on P-days? - wash the car, email, write letters, clean our apartment, clean our car, hang out with our district....OH!!! This week we're going to Brown vs. Board of Education Historical Site!!!! I am SOOOO excited!!!! :D I will send pics of that next week!