"I got some rocks"

There goes another week in beautiful California! Thank you all for tuning in on this week's broadcast of Elder Shumways life! I'll try not to strain your eyes too much!

Tuesday- went through a lot of old records

Wednesday- exchanges! Did some service putting up no parking signs. Went door knocking, found a lot of Spanish speakers. 

Thursday- more exchanges! I was a English Elder doing Spanish work so I didn't understand a lot!

Friday- ward Christmas party. We met a few people that members had invited and started talking to them. 

Saturday- this was my favorite day of the week! There was a festival thing where they closed of an entire street and the whole town came out to walk the street to see a bunch of booths and businesses handing out free stuff. So of course we had to take advantage of that. We talked to a whole lot of people as they were walking by. We handed out a Bible and a couple book of Mormons and a WHOLE LOT of Jesus pictures! It was super cold for my Arizona blood but the Shumway in me tuffed it out! It was cool to see the whole town come out together and how many people were happy to be with family. 

Sunday- had an amazing church service! And that night had the departing missionary zoom meeting. For those who don't know I've been with Elder Cutler for his last transfer and he's going home. It was great serving with him ðŸ«¡

Spiritual thought- yall are probably thinking "WHAT COULD HIS EMAIL TITLE MEAN!?". Well calm down cause im about to tell you. This Sunday we were asked to sit in and participate in a lesson with one of the younger classes. As the teacher was re-explaining the story of Ether, she went over how the brother of Jared probably said something along the lines of "Well God, I tried and tried and I came up with these rocks. I'm sorry I couldn't come up with more but... I got some rocks". I can relate to this story in feeling like, in the grand scheme of things, I don't have a lot to give God. I have my time and a few talents, but in the end they really are just rocks....
It gives me confidence to know that even with my pitiful offering of a rock, the Lord can make it shine bright. Even with the little Faith I have my God can multiple it. 

Thank you for reading my email! I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas. 

Lastly I wanna say how grateful I am for the memories I have of all my friends who I had such fun times with. I think about yall a lot and am super thankful.













Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

what a week...

Image
Hey yall! We had a week full of ups and downs. God is always out here looking out for us, sending us good times.  Last Monday we had the 1st counselor in the mission presidency come and sit on our district council and he took some time in the beginning to talk to us about straight up oral hygiene. He's a semi-retired dentist and brought us all toothbrushes, floss, and tongue scrapers. I had never used a tongue scraper before and I doubt that I'll ever go back. On Wednesday I had an exchange with one of my Zone Leaders and he changed my perspective on how I treat my companion and how I should go about doing work. We got to find a few people that day and extend 4 baptismal dates to our friends. I pray that they all stick to their commitments. This week we also got to stop by some members who had been going through some tough times the past few months with the Sister having to go through open heart surgery. The husband read to her the Percy Jackson series and they got through the ...
Read more

what happened this week...

Image
hey... everyone.. im here in california... talking about Jesus with everyone.. hope everyone had a great week! yeah but i don't remember what happened this week. i met like a ton of atheists this week... like probably more than my entire mission combined. it's interesting because you get so used to always talking about God and helping people grow their faith but your brain goes blank when you can't really do that. It reminds about how King Lamoni was taught. A little update on teaching side of things. Our friend Matthew is on date for the 16th so please prayer for him. We also have about 4 people we want to invite to be baptized this week.  oh yeah! im also in a trio right now because someone in my district had to get Emergency Transferred and our new companion is a spanish missionary so that means i got to go to spanish ward and i understood about 30% about what was happening so that was cool. today we went on a hike for our district activity and then went to c...
Read more

NEW STUFF

Image
So I have been transferred to Conejo Canyon in the Zone of Newbury Park. I have been in this area before on exchanges so it's cool to be back here and we are on bikes half of the time! I am follow up training Elder Feilzer who was trained by my trainer so we are brothers in the mission but also a parent to him. He is funny. Knows a lot but also doesn't. He's good. I did probably smell the most amount of weed I have ever smelt on the mission this week so that was cool... I am also in a apartment with 4 missionaries. Hope everyone has an awesome week! -Elder Shumway (Awkward family photo) Me, Elder Butler (Trainer), Elder Prusse (Brother)....Elder Prusse is not my companion. So now there are 3 brothers..
Read more