Last email from Argentina/ Feelings about the mission/7 days to go!

Ha!  That application to date an RM was really funny!   First of all I wanted to wish Grandma Gisela a happy bday!


Wow this past week was a good one.  We had 10 lessons with members present and found some great investigators and..... I was spit on.   As I was walking away after being spit on I started thinking about how great my mission has been. I realized something very important that I think every missionary in the field should know, and that is that this really is the best mission in the world, with the best people in the world. Occasionally yes you will have someone want to rob you or spit on you or even kick you in the butt, but I just start feeling sorry for them.  They are the ones that need this glorious gospel more than anyone.  I feel so sorry for them because they dont know that today we have a prophet talking to God or that the priesthood is on the earth again along with the actual church of Jesus Christ!   Ive always known that this work is important but the urgency of it is just sad. Baptism is one of the first steps to get into the celestial kingdom. I am so grateful for the opportunity to have and be a representative of this wonderful work.

I hope I come home the way you all expect me to be but more than that I hope that my Father accepts the work I've done.
I'll tell everyone how my week went next week. Thanks for the schedule.  I'm excited to see you all!
love elder schupple

P.S.  Mom-- of course ill keep writing you, in fact how about every sunday night i just call or chat with ya :)
Love you mom... thanks so much for writing me every single monday for 2 years.  I love you
 
p.s.s Hey an elder emailed these pictures...I'll email more later

Application to date an RM

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2 weeks to go in the mission/lots of investigators!

I would love to recieve that book [Home with Honor]. Im just finishing up the Doctrine and Covenants right now, then I have to read the Pearl. My favorite books that I've read in the mission are the Book of Mormon and Jesus the Christ. Ive learned to like reading, it always starts my day nicely.


As for the baptisms, I do not think we will have another baptism in the next 2 weeks.  We have a lot of investigators but the deal is they all have complicated situations like a lot of them need to get divorces and re married so they can get baptized, then we have this kid named Franco that really wants to get baptized but his parents wont let him till he turns 18 in october.  So I'll miss that one and pretty much all the other baptisms we have set up, but I've tried in my mission to leave my areas better than I found them and here I believe I've done that so I feel pretty good about how I'm leaving Claypole. Also yesterday we got a new bishop, which always helps the work because new bishops always want to help  missionary work, and to make it better hes only 24 years old and an former missionary... which is even better. He is very animated  in helping us so we are excited for how the near future is going to be.

As for our numbers, they are all growing which is great.  We had a great week.  I did exchanges with the zone leaders and learned a lot from Elder Lucas from Paraguay.

Im very excited to see you all and you're all still in my prayers. Ill try to take lots of pics in the next 2 weeks so we can have some good ones to look at when i get back.... any pic requests?

I love you all sooooo much

elder schupple

The Work is rolling on!

Thats fun that you saw Elder Rice´s mom, and that card board cut out of him is really funny!   Jackies Lake Powell trip looks like it was way fun.... I'm kinda jealous our youth conferences were always kinda... not like that. Then again we didnt really have the resources that they have in Utah. SARAH IS GETTING MARRIED???? Thats great!  Shes def one of my fav cousins.  Shes got a good head on her shoulders, and thats kinda wierd that im gunna be there for it.  I'm so used to missing weddings and babies being born and big events like this.... wierd. As for the talk, just let me know what the bishop wants me to talk about and I'll be happy to give a talk.  Ha at least this time I'll have some time to prepare. I think I get the message your sending about the talk when i come home also...I'll be sure to not just give a "this was my mission" talk. I remember those kind of talks as well, to me as a kid I'm pretty sure I enjoyed those more but I remember Bishop Worthen saying once that when you come home from your mission you should not give a talk like that, it should be a talk that enlightens others and not just a recap of the past 2 years of your life. Ill do the best i can plus add some spiritual experiences from my mission that helped me a lot.

As for this past week, now that the mundial is over, the people are all more friendly and accepting.  We found 7 new investigators this past week so thats good.  We just need to get back up the standard of 12 now. The good part is that the ward members have been helping us a lot going with us to lessons.  They even help with all the games, so with that we have been keeping a steady 10 lessons with members present. So "Go ward members!"  On Tuesday we had district meeting and we decided to go out and look for people to come into the church to tour it and teach them a little. It worked out a lot better than I thought it would.  I went with Elder Keller from the offices and we had a great experience finding four people together. It was a great success and we´ll probably do that again in the future.

Now for some of the bad news.  This past week I got sick.  It started Wednesday and I was in bed dying until friday evening. Then Saturday we had a service project helping a member build his house, and I started sweating really bad even though it was freezing outside (i felt like i was going to pass out). So I took a rest and luckily didnt get sick again. Then Sunday it rained and now the entire zone is sick except for me :) However I did slip and fall a couple times cuz my shoes dont have any traction walking in mud.  So that was unfortunate, but things like that happen in the mission.

The office elders are starting to call me and Elder Stienkuhler [who went out with me from the MTC] these days telling us to cut our hair and start packing and a bunch of stuff.  Its wierd....and kinda like their teasing us cuz it still doesnt feel like we are leaving yet. Im glad I'm ending near Elder Stienkuhler cuz he keeps reminding me to start buying stuff and reminds me of a lot of things.

Youre all in my prayers, i love you all

elder schupple

ps the pics are of of me and my comp, Elder Roy, we're in in this store because we were visiting a member and I remembered you wanted just us 2 so I had the member take the pic.  Also included are some  pics of the filters for the water that we were using.   I changed them after who knows how long...ya. Plus there are some pics of Argentine $
lvlv

Argentina out of the World Cup/ The Work will be smoother!

Ha! 'Sounds like Utah is treating you all nicely except for the big old cut on Jackie's arm. [She ran into barbed wire playing in the night with friends] It sounds like she has some good friends and that is very important in the life of a 16 year old. But then again Jackie is one of the greatest and probably easiest of the 5 of us kids.
As for this past week the World Cup ended for Argentina [after losing to Germany] and that means the work is going to start going a lot smoother, which is good although there were quite a few unhappy people on Saturday. I was asked a couple times if I was German and I just said no, I was born in the states. This past week was a pretty good week... kinda normal, but now with the world cup being over for Argentina we should start having more success.

I dont know how much I've changed. I feel like the same person, happy and stuff. I guess we´ll see when I get home... hope your not dissapointed with how I come home after 2 years.

........ I was just thinking this email looks a lot shorter than how much i wrote then i realized it deleted half of the email i wrote..... grrr. there are some things i will not miss about argentina.

So yesterday we were in church in fast and testimony meeting and we were all enjoying the spirit of the meeting until this one lady got up and started sharing her life story which went on for about 10 mins. Finally the bishop slipped her a note telling her to end so other people could have a turn. Well she said, "You will all have to forgive me but this is how i bear my testimony," and she continues on. Well she started sharing a little about her past sins and when she went too far the bishop got up and told her to go sit down. He then bore his testimony about how testimonies can help other people. He also said that as bishop of the ward it was his duty to protect the ward and stuff. Well after he did that and sat down the meeting went a whole lot better. It was a good Sunday for our ward. We had 60 people come to church, which for our ward doubles the average of 30 that we usually have. Its really sad how many inactive members we have....all from grudges and being offended. We have an amazing bishop and I wished the members could just see him how we elders see him-- working and worrying a bunch about his ward members.
Sorry if the emails scattered--I'm being rushed.
I love you all very much, keep the faith going strong. You're all in my prayers.
lvlv
elder schupple

[Here are a few pictures of family events.  Jackie's barbed wire injuries, Ashton at her chemotherapy and the 3 grandgirls at the 4th of July celebration]

Pics from last Preparation Day..Cathedral in LaPlata

OK... the first pics are from P-day when we went to LaPlata and visited the largest catholic cathedral in South America. Then there are few of the station at LaPlata and a few of a ¨15th¨ birthday party. In the latin culture its like a sweet 16 but bigger, so ya then my small bathroom