Seattle at night...Sept. 25, 2017

1) A jungle next to the Schafers house, soooo cool 2) Rain when we got off the ferry, suuuuper pretty So Pictures of Seattle at night kind of suck but I tried my best, It was beautiful in person haha love you all!

You take care alrighty?

So first things first, transfers are this week and heres whats going down, Elder Hess is a goner, he gone. But that is really sad, thats what the email title is because he always said that! haha But hes gone which means I'm with Elder Felipe for a few days because his companion Elder Sandstrom left as well so Im a zone leader for a day, I got to do transfer calls last night which was pretty fun, being a zone leader is stressful! haha and I don't even have all the responsibility! haha but anywho, back to transfers, I will be...............staying in ASL North and my new companion will be Elder Camillo Gois!!! I'm so pumped, Elder Madsen will almost definitely going ASL South with Elder Bird to be trained. But its gonna be a great transfer! Super stoked to get to work with Elder Gois.

also Brady is back on date, had a lesson with him about the Atonement where we showed him the Bible videos of the Atonement, holy cow those videos are the bomb! I need to get them all because we don't have all of them, but yeah Brady for Baptism!! haha just trying to get him to live Word of Wisdom, its been tough but we are working on it! Also, George is very accepting but he never shows up to church so we are working with him still. Andre cancelled on us when we were halfway to his house, its like 2 hours away, that wasn't fun but then we went tracting so its all good i guess.

Lets see...funny stories or anything like that? Nothing much haha, really just a slow week, i got to go to the space needle and ride a ferry into Seattle at night..it was crazy. I'll actually tell that story, so first we had a dinner appointment with a member waaaaay out in Port Orchard, its actually not that far but its across the sound so we took a ferry from Edmonds to Kingston and drive to Port Orchard and when we show up the mom goes, Oh crap! I totally forgot!! so we said ok we will go tracting and come back a little later she still wanted us to eat with them, but we do that come back and we are eating when I ask the wife hey do you know when the last ferry is? she doesn't but she asks her husband who looks it up and sees 8:30, and at that point it was 8....and the ferry is about 30 minutes away.....Oh crap!!! We shovel down the rest of our food, teach a lesson on the book of mormon, throw on our shoes and then sprint out basically haha. We go to the closest ferry which is in Bremerton, so we drive there and somehow we got there like 10 minutes early, it was crazy, but we got there on time and rode the Bremerton-Seattle ferry at night time, and oh boy is Seattle pretty at night, especially riding in on a ferry, it was awesome!!! 

Oh and mom and dad the family is the Schafer family, the dad Adam says he knows you, hes awesome!

But miracles for this week! The Youngs! We (Elder Felipe and I) had dinner with the Knox's the branch president and the Young's and they are the bomb! Elder Felipe says I need to baptize them haha, me and Elder Gois will go visit again this week but they are getting so prepared right now! We are so excited to teach them!

Today I studied Jacob chapter 5, which is tough, I am going to read it again but Jacob chapter 6 and 7 are bomb! they are so awesome! Jacob shares his testimony and it is so powerful! I know that the Book of Mormon was written by prophets of God! I love you all so much! 

-Elder Schoemig

Kenny, signs, bike - Sept. 18th, 2017

1. Kenny St, shout out to my favorite older brother lol

2. A sign in the middle of Puget Sound (In Edmonds)

3. A volcano shooting out stuff, pretty cool

4. First bike ride as a missionary, Classic

I don't know what to put in this thingy

So this week was good, as they all are when you are serving the Lord, but we did have some miracles!!

One of our less actives texted us saying he wants all the lessons again, so we started teaching him those, and we are going to get his home teacher there to fellowship him back into the ward that was way cool, it is a man named Darryl and he is going to be moving to Utah in like the next year or so so thats way cool!

We had a lesson with George and we put him on date for October 14th!! But he still hasn't come to church so we need to be bold and just tell him what he needs to do for baptism. But something suuuper cool about the lesson with George is that we invited him to be baptized and he said yes and that he would try to prepare for that and then he was like "You know, I just remembered a dream I had a long time ago where someone told me that these two guys would come up to me and teach me about a book and teach me something important in this room." He had had a dream in the very room we were teaching him!! It was crazy the miracles that the Lord gives us! But it was so cool, we are just trying to get him to actually come to church!!

I went on exchanges with the Edmonds elders on Friday, it is a biking area, and Edmonds is famous for its hills.....it was super fun haha I loved being on a bike!! The seat was very uncomfortable though. But we went street contacting a lot in Edmonds Community College and Downtown Edmonds which is a cool place. Met a former investigator who we invited to read the Book of Mormon again and that was cool. Then this lady stops us in downtown edmonds and shes like hey youre mormon right? yes ma'am we are mormon. And then she tells us about her neighbor (the Elders quorum president in the Edmonds ward) and we taught her a ton about the church and everything right there on the street and she said she would read the book of Mormon!! twas very cool. 

Saturday we had another miracle! We went back to Eliots house and right as we pulled up Russel and Eliots girlfriends were both leaving! theyre the ones that are not really open to talk with us, but we went and it was just Eliot and Russel, we knocked, no answer, we knocked again, no answer, and Russel is a hearing dude btw. but we were like oh no what should we do? This is perfect for us to talk to these two, we both said prayers and felt like we needed to stay and talk with them tonight, so Elder Hess walks to the door grabs the doorknob and pounds the door...shook the house. and finally they both came to the door!! It was perfect! They were even glad to see us! It was awesome! Russel doesn't know ASL so I talked with him while Elder Hess talked with Eliot and it turns out we both talked about similar things, the temple, the Book of Mormon, eternal families. Stuff like that it was so awesome!! but Russel said he is scared to read the Book of Mormon because he knows that if he does he will have to change his whole life..but I just testified to him and Elder Hess testified to Eliot that they needed to read the Book of Mormon and about the power that is in it. And they both said they would read it right when we left! It was super cool!

Sunday there was a fireside, it was cool

The Lord is real! He lives and He loves us! Always strive to go back to Him and he will welcome you always! In the MTC my teachers showed us some passages in 2nd Nephi and there is a common theme in them that is just awesome and this has been reinforced to me as I have been out here in Washington, that no matter what we do, whatever wickedness or terrible things we do. The people we hurt or the people that hurt us. Everything that we have ever done that is bad qualifies us to not go to heaven, but if we strive to return to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ then "His arm is outstretched still" I know that this is true. His arm is forever outstretched to support and sustain us. I love you all!!

-Elder Schoemig

Ohh Bruddah Please, make me happy!!

So this week was long, I was out of my area for a long time but that is ok. So I will explain the title later, that happened Saturday, anyways...lots of exchanges this week, we exchanged with ASL South, I went with Elder Bird, down south, went to Federal Way and Auburn and really just tried to contact a bunch of people, no one really answered and if they did they were not interested but we tried our best and that is what matters!! ASL South is weird though, everything up there is so spread out, up north it isn't as much. But we had dinner Tuesday night with the Forsyths, Tom and Tami I think are there names and they were so shocked that it was me, they know you Mom and Dad and they were asking all these questions about the branch and all the deaf people and stuff...But it was cool, they don't really remember me though, they moved when I was like 3 they said, so they remember Manda and Kenny and Autumn but not the rest of us. So that was cool. Thursday was Zone Conference and it was just the best!!! Answers to questions and concerns I had, and a lot that I didn't have, zone conference is the best and the AP's Elder Smith and Elder Fatani are the bomb! Elder Smith shared a thought about becoming missionaries who are all in to the work. I was interpreting and I just felt the spirit so strong as I signed what was being said, It was beautiful!! So cool, goosebumps all over the place! Elder Fatani is from New Zealand! The North island, but he is soooo cool, super awesome! Friday we had a lesson get cancelled which is a big bummer but we went finding instead, and then we exchanged with the zone leaders, Elder Sandstrom and Elder Felipe, so we all stayed in the ZLs apartment and then headed seperate ways in the morning, but Elder Sandstorm is going home soon and he went with Elder Hess to our investigator in Sumas, while Elder Felipe and myself stayed in Lake Forest Park, Elder Felipe is from the Phillipines and he knew Tyler Haws haha, he was like Lone Peak? Did you know Tyler Haws? and I was like uhh no hes super old haha, but we talked about basketball, Anywho we went to visit a Filipino member named Nicasio, he used to be homeless but he got an apartment and now he tries to help out homeless people and lets them stay there a while, but anyway, we went and Elder Felipe asked about a homeless girl and her boyfriend that Nicasio let stay there, and Nicasio said "oh they're gone, they come around asking to stay here every once in a while but I don't let them, they keep asking for their dope things back." and when he says dope he actually means dope, he pulled out a spoon they used for heroine and their needles, and we were like Nicasio! Why in the world do you still have those??? Throw those out! He was like, Oh yeah thats a good idea ahaha. So I was like a foot from two heroine needles...crazy. And then he wouldn't let us leave until we took some money from him and he has an accent so he was like "Oh bruddas please, make me happy! If you don't take my money I will cry!! Bruddas make me happy please!!" It was so funny, I love Nicasio. But that was good Sunday was good, we had dinner with a family with a deaf son, the Potters, they honestly look super familiar...but I don't know if I know them or not. but that was cool, we had a visit with the Youngs, one of the members told me their daughter, who is in her sign language class, came up to her and told her that her parents want to go to church! So we went to their house and talked with them, it was way good!! 

Anywho, I know that Jesus Christ lives! and He loves us all! Read the Book of Mormon and pray daily and your life will be blessed!! I know that this church is run by modern day prophets and I cannot wait to hear what they have to say next month! It is going to be awesome! Listen to their council! They are some of the smartest men on this planet!

Love you all so much!

-Elder Schoemig

ps sorry no pictures this week, it was super smoky and gross anyway, but love you all!!

Seattle Pictures - Sept. 4, 2017

Just those pictures, and they don't do it justice, it was so amazing...sorry you all can't be here!;)haha

Its been a minute

Ok I'll just start with the big news this week...

Monday- I got in my first car accident!!! It was pretty bomb and scary, I told my family about it in a video but for those of you who don't speak the celestial language....(BTW thanks President Uchtdorf for that one haha) but seriously, I was getting in the left turn lane and I signal for a while and I see this lady that looks like she is slowing down behind me so I start getting over but she was going way fast and she entered the lane early and she just plowed right into us as we got into the lane, and she went halfway over the median and my sideview mirror went flying off and it was just crazy, but that happened and thats about it on Monday, well actually we went to a cool military cemetery and looked around and stuff, it was way cool, there were also some mausoleums we went to.

Tuesday- We got a new car, a 2017 Chevy Malibu and Elder Hess loves it to death, we had two investigators cancel on us at night time

Wednesday- Zone interviews, Pres and Sis Schofield are the best! Love them to death! We visited a part member family and a less active family, trying to teach the part member family, the mom is a single mom and she has one son about 10 years old, trying to connect with him CODA to CODA haha, he is very quiet though..tough.

Thursday- Had an investigator cancel on us again and an investigator drop us

Friday- Visited the Zooks, it was good, invited to church, they didn't show up, bummer, but going back another time, they're cool. finally met with George we had been trying all week but he kept skipping, we met him at his work at a cancer research facility and it was so cool, we met in this giant room out side with a huge waterfall and big trees just hidden between these two buildings with the freeway about 60 feet above us, and invited him to be baptized!! He said sure! haha which is better than no, but we forgot to give him a specific day so we are going to meet with him soon!!

Saturday- Andre canceled on us when we were halfway to his house, so our whole day was thrown for a loop, we had no one to contact no one to do anything with, we tried to do some member visits but it didnt really work, I rode my first ferry to Whidbey Island to visit a former investigator, he wasn't there, then we drove on a bridge called Deception Pass right at sunset and wow...God loves his chilldren..the pretty nature pictures are from that drive, it was a tough week and we just felt prompted to take the long way home and that was there for us, giving us a little boost, it was awesome, definitely doing that again cuz it was so cool. 

Sunday- Testimony meeting was bomb! We had a member named Barry go up and bear his testimony and his conversion story, it was so funny and so spiritual and so amazing, it was the most spirit I've felt since I left the MTC he had a long story but I'll share what stood out to me, he talked about wanting baptism now! He said he went to seminary with a friend in Utah and then learned and felt the spirit strong in the temple...yeah he went in the temple as a non member, not his fault but oh well haha, he said he needed baptism now! and then he talked about how he knew that it was true and then he told everyone, you know its true, there is something different in this church, so DO NOT leave. he said I've been going to church for 50 years now and I cant leave! Do you know why I can't leave? Because I know it is true, I cannot leave because I know that this is a true church and a true gospel. Holy cow that was so cool...I loved it, Barry is a cool guy haha

Anyway, I love you all so much!! It is so amazing here and you all are the best!!! Love you to the sun and back!! (That one is just to one up Sister Schoemig)

Love ya!

-Elder Schoemig