HAVING FAITH, TEACHING, AND CLIMBING MANGO TREES

Shumway Crew,

Well … CANNOT believe that another week has gone by. The weeks fly in the mish!

Gee Whiz Fact:

1. Have you ever tried a green mango with salt ... because that’s the thing here in Chulucanas! Right now many mangoes aren’t ripe and that is how they eat them. Nifty right!

This week was an okay week. We worked hard, contacted, and came home exhausted at night … BUT we are trying to find new investigators. We challenged many of them to baptism and many said no. For example, we have been teaching a family for quite some time about the restoration and two lessons ago we challenged them to baptism. They have many questions and told us that they weren’t willing to take that step right now. The biggest challenge with them is they don’t understand why they need to pray about our message if they already know their own church is true. I told them that we want them to find their own testimonies ... and know with certainty that this message is true ... and their Heavenly Father promises to answer our prayers if we want to know the truth. They kept asking more and more questions and finally I just shared my testimony. When in doubt … share your testimony! And I invited them one last time, to pray to our Heavenly Father if this message is true. They accepted and I pray that they try it! It will change their lives if they get an answer! We are going to try one more lesson and see where it goes. But man ... we have been struggling with investigators this last week.

Our sweet Marible is also struggling. She seemed so interested at first but lately has not had interest. We went to go take her to church Sunday, after trying and trying these last few weeks, and when we got there she told us that she is willing to listen and learn from us, but doesn’t have time to go to church. It broke my heart. We are slowly losing her, and we are going to try one more lesson with her to see what we should do.

Overall, we keep losing investigators. My comp and I are praying for help and that we can find new investigators in our path! We have been contacting more, which is always great, and knocking doors in our area! We have found great people, and are challenging them to baptism their first lesson! It’s bold, but it’s working! Many have accepted, and with faith, they can get to that step!

Faith has been huge for us this week. My comp and I have lacked that and we were reading in Preach my Gospel that DOUBT and FEAR are the opposite of FAITH. SO … we will NOT DOUBT and will NOT FEAR … because if we have faith our Heavenly Father can help us do anything! I just know if we keep up contacting and knocking doors we are going to find someone that is ready for this gospel!

Also, we had two activities this week … Meet the Mormons Movie Night and a Ward Activity in one of the mango fields of Chulucanas! Both were a success with many less-actives and new converts present! So that was a major blessing!

Mission life is definitely like a rollercoaster. There are ups and downs and every day you learn something from it and it brings so much joy. I love life!!! Sometimes it is hard and at times you just feel so exhausted it is hard to wake up and start a new day … BUT IT IS WORTH IT!

I love, love, love being a missionary and love, love, love being a member of this church!!!

Love you all!!! Do what’s right!

XOXO, Hermana Shumway

Climbing mango trees!!!