Men in Black

It has been a good week.  The weather has been in the 60-70's about all week!  It has even hit 80!  This week, I hear, is supposed to do the same.

Monday we went to dinner with Bro Meacham (the girls were sick, Sister Meacham stayed home with them).  Tuesday we picked up a new investigator, Jim.  He is an awesome older gentleman.  Humble, and kind.  We are seeing him again on Wednesday.


Thursday we taught Brother Chocolate's grandkids again.  They have a hard time staying focused, but they do know a lot.

Thursday night we drove up to Auburn and spent the night with them.  Because they were in a threesome it made it 5 elders in the apartment.  We had to get up at 5:20 so we could all shower and get to Utica on time at 9 am for Zone Leader Conference.

ZLC was great!  President is feeling his time is short, and has a lot to share.  It is amazing to listen to Him teach from the scriptures, and to feel the spirit radiate from him.  I know President Bulloch is one of the reasons why I came to this mission.

After ZLC we stopped in Ithaca for the night, because we had an interview to do there on Saturday morning.  We went tracting since the other elders were in a lesson.  Apparently we scared a little girl who does not answer the door very often.  She was so frightened that she called the police!  As we were at the church the next day, the mother called to see if it was us (I left a card at the door).  Luckily the mother was very nice about it.  Her daughter described us as guys with trench coats on.  What a frightful imagination she has to assume we meant her harm!

Saturday we had an awesome lesson with Sister Cleary and her non-member husband on Jabob 1-4.  They both really liked it, and was probably one of the best lessons we have had with Brother Cleary.  Sister Cleary is a great lady, and Brother Cleary is easy to talk to.

Yesterday was Stake Conference.  It was probably one of the best ones I have been to!  Both President and Sister Bulloch spoke (probably since it was the last stake conference before they go home).  The whole stake conference was on 'let your light shine forth.'
We did not have any investigators come though.  grrrrrr...

Well, I love you all and hope you have a great week!  Tomorrow we go on a blitz with the APs and we need to get next week's training ready for when we go visit all the districts.  I'm going to enjoy the weather!

Love,
Elder Shurtz

Birthday and a Baptism

It has been a busy one!
Monday we went to the Corning Museum of Glass.  It was awesome.  We saw somebody make a glass plate straight from the melting pot.

I then brought Elder Tollefson back to Elmira to work with me.  This is his first transfer, and he is an amazing missionary.  He will do a lot.  After district meeting I then worked with Elder Wilkins who is working in Owego.  He is enthused about the gospel, and is very polite.  He is going to be training this next transfer (Transfer day is on Wednesday.)

Elder Duffin and I then had fun working together again on Wednesday evening, visiting the Meachams, finalizing plans for the baptism.  They shared a story with us on how they realized one of the families who use to babysit for them were Mormons, and they did not find out till this past week.  It is fun to see them recognize how the Lord has been preparing them for their baptism.

Thursday morning I went to Ithaca to work with Elder Stratton. We had fun.  We taught a lady from China who is going to Ithaca for college.  We focused on recognizing the spirit, since she has never had a religion in her life before.  I hope to see her progress.  We had the lesson with the Branch President and his wife in Ithaca.  It just so happens to be Heather Merrill's in-laws.  So that was a nice surprise.

Friday, we made cookies for an investigator they have been having a hard time getting into, and we got in!  Had a small lesson, then went our way to meet up with the other missionaries at the church.  Elder Duffin and I had a second transfer training for Sister Smith, one of the sister missionaries in Ithaca.  The sisters always have a great spirit [they even made me a cake for my birthday!].  Then we met up with the Elders and went got some wings. YUMMM!  Elder Duffin and I then went home, did some weekly planning, and then worked the rest of the day (lunch was too much for us to eat any dinner).

Saturday was awesome!  The baptism was great!  Well attended.  Besides the little boy hitting his head on the pew, and bleeding quite a bit, it went well.  (He is fine now).  The stake president give a talk on baptism, and his niece did a wonderful musical number.  Then Elder Duffin and I were given the privilege of baptizing them.  Elder Duffin baptized Brother Meacham and Grace (9), while I baptized Sister Meacham and Georgia (11).  The spirit was strong.

That night Elder Duffin took me out to Chili's, in celebration of my birthday.  Just by chance, our ward mission leader was their with his family, and bought us dessert.  (Such a good guy).

We also had transfer calls Saturday night!  Elder Duffin and I are staying together.  Both of my sons (elders I trained), Elder Simmonds, and Elder Hall are going to be training this transfer.

Sunday the Meachams were confirmed.  They are glowing.  Tonight, we have dinner with them.

We also stopped by a less-active member who lives in the middle of nowhere.  At first he was very friendly, but then he went into a rampage of why the church is not true, and all this anti-stuff.  It is scary how dark someone can get when they once had so much light.

This week we are excited for Zone Leader Council!  I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Shurtz

 

Marching On!

Hello Family!

Can you believe it is already March?  The weather has been off and on all week (nothing new there), but it is way better than last year!

Tuesday at district meeting we had a lady who does the addiction recovery program come and share with us the program, so we could figure out how to best help investigators who are struggling.  One thing she mentioned, which is sad, that most people who are in the program had some sort of sexual abuse in their life which attributed a lot to their addictions.  Smoking seems to be one of the hardest things for people to quit here in New York.

We had an investigator last week drop us, after coming to church a few times, receiving awesome lessons, and reading from the Book of Mormon.  We feel she was anti-ed, but she is ignoring us, and wont even come to the door when we try her house.  It is sad when that happens.  But, Saturday we found some awesome potentials we are excited to start teaching.

Wednesday we taught mutual.  I forgot how difficult it is to keep youth involved and attentive!  I know I do not want to be a teacher when I grow up!  But, Thursday we had dinner with the Stake President, then had our Stake Missionary Coordination Meeting.  His son goes to a Catholic high school, and said one of his friends is seriously interested in learning more.  The friend came to church with him this last week.  He lives in another area, so we wont be teaching him, but he is an awesome kid.

We also started doing service at a food bank this last week.  Mainly we are filtering and sorting food that is donated, and then the food goes out to the different food pantries in the area.  It looks like it is going to be a good opportunity to talk to some good people.

Friday afternoon I went to my first Catholic mass.  This guy we do service with at the food pantry, invited us, so we accepted. (We have given him a Book of Mormon, and he said he would read it the week earlier.) An experience for sure, but it has made me ever more grateful for the restored gospel.  It was just so obvious how much was lost, distorted, and confused through the ages and how much did have to be restored from on high.

Saturday we went back to the Stake President's house for a birthday party Luau for their niece who was turning 16.  They had some non-member friends there and it was a great opportunity to get to know some of them.  They actually cooked a whole pig for it!  (Poor Wilbur.)

Yesterday we had 7 investigators at church!  It was exciting to see them all get there.  One family, Lasean and James, are going through a hard time, but they still came to church, which was awesome!

This week we have 3 exchanges we are going on.  CRAZY!  This afternoon we are headed to Corning, to check out the Museum of Glass (3rd most visited spot in New York.  Niagara Falls, and Statue of Liberty are the others) On my birthday I will be working with Elder Stratton who was my companion on my last birthday.  Fun stuff!  I think we will be going to Wings over Ithaca (These are amazing wings!  They only have them in some areas like Syracuse, Saratoga, and Ithaca) for lunch to celebrate when we switch back.  We also have the sisters in Ithaca we need to do second transfer training with.

The Meachams are super excited for their baptism this Saturday!  It will be a great week!

Love,
Elder Shurtz

PS - I found this picture at one of the missionary apartments.  I don't think it is from our mission though.

Taking Upon Ourselves the Name of Christ

Fun week!  Some days we woke up with snow on the ground, but only to have it disappear before noon.

Tuesday we had Zone Conference. (AMAZING)  It is strange to think I only have one more Zone Conference in May.  President Bulloch is feeling kind of the same since he is going to be replaced at the beginning of July.

After Zone Conference, president had a chance to meet the Meacham family.  After they left, President said that he is impressed with them.  They are an awesome family!  They [the parents and the 2 eligible girls (they also have a 7 year old girl)] are going to be getting baptized on March 10th.  The ward is super excited.  So are we!

At Zone Conference we were given a card with our name on it that coordinates with TiWi (the black box they installed in our cars).  Now we log in with this card by holding the card to the box and then if we speed or don't have our seat belts on or 'drive aggressively' it creates a report on how safe of a driver we are.  It takes a little to get use to, having a box talk to you as you are driving.

We went on an exchange with the APs after Zone Conference.  Both Elder Christensen and Elder McCleve I have served with (MTC and 2nd companion), and was fun to work with them again. 

Yesterday we had a crazy (yet typical for New York) Sacrament Meeting.  We also got doubled stacked with dinners, and we were hurting as we were leaving.  The members sure love to feed us.

Lately I have been so grateful for the temple and the promises we make there.  There is so much power behind it.  I was reading in Mosiah 5 this week about taking upon ourselves the name of Christ.  It made me reflect upon how we do that at baptism, sacrament, but even more deeply in the temple.

Elder Shurtz

Happy President's Day!

Happy Presidents Day!  I love having a Family History Center, and a key to get in!  It makes e-mailing a lot easier on holidays that fall on Monday.

We had a lesson with Debbie on Monday.  Talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Great lady.  Very easy going, and likes what she is learning.  We talked about baptism, and said that is something she wants to do.  We are looking at sometime in March or April.

Tuesday we had dinner and met with the Meachams.  Such a great family.  I hope to build a good relationship with them so I can keep in contact when I get transferred.

Tuesday night we drove to Endicott and worked with them for most of the day.  They just opened the area about a week ago.  I worked with the awesome Elder Bergman.  He was in my last district, two transfers ago.  It is fun to see the growth in missionaries that occurs in such little time.  We went to dinner that night at a china buffet.  It was soooo good!  I had lots of crab meat, and spicy chicken of various assortments.  My stomach was not too happy afterwards.

Then we drove to Greene to work with a new missionary, Elder Lewis, for his second transfer training.  Elder Lewis is a great missionary, who is learning a lot from his trainer, and is a hard worker.

We drove back Thursday afternoon, completely drained (how do APs and President and Sister Bulloch do it?)  It was nice to be back in our own area to work the rest of the night.

Friday we had dinner with an awesome couple who invited a recent convert and her non-member husband over for dinner.  It was such a positive experience, I don't think Elder Duffin and I had to say more than a few words.  We have awesome people in this ward!

Tomorrow is Zone Conference!  We are so stoked!  It is going to be on chapter 10 of PMG, and Elder Duffin and I are trying to get our training clear and precise.  We will be talking about listening and helping people resolve concerns.

Tonight we are going to have our interviews with President and the APs are coming to spend the night, then they will be working with us after Zone conference.  We just found out that Brother Joseph B. Wirthlin Jr. [Son of the late Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles] and his wife Kathy W. Wirthlin have been called to serve as the President of the New York Utica Mission beginning July 1, 2012.  It will happen a few weeks after I go home, which makes my group the last one president sends home.

Time goes by fast!  Hope you have a great week!

Elder Shurtz

Another Busy Week...

It is  sometimes hard to remember all that has happened during the week.
Tuesday we went to Binghamton for district meeting, and presented our training there.  We talked about teaching principles and applying that teaching commandments and helping people keep commitments.  We also had another lesson with Yolanda.  The house was busy busy busy, with many grand kids around.  We weren't able to teach very well, but she had a lot of questions we helped her out with.  We also met with the awesome Meacham family.  The parents are getting ready to be baptized in March.  They are the 'golden' family, with three little girls (2 baptismal age), and they have been enjoying church for a few months now.  They are such an awesome family.

Wednesday we went to the Ithica district meeting, and taught the same stuff.  We ran out of time, so it wasn't as great.  We also found out that president is splitting that district, and now we are covering three districts.  Elder Becerrill (who is training a 2nd missionary in a row) was called to be the new DL.  He is a smart, hard worker, and will do good as a district leader.

Thursday we taught a sweet investigator named Debbie, who came to church for the 2nd time yesterday.  She has questions (good thing), and the ward is doing a great job in making her feel welcome.

Saturday morning we helped this non-denominational church clean up and setup their pews after they have done some extensive repair to the old church building.  We met them as we were meeting up with a potential.  We saw they were doing some work, and offered to come back and help out.  And after some persistence, they told us to come back Saturday.  It was an awesome service opportunity.  They offered to help with anything our church needed help with.  So we might be working with the ward to come up with a service activity we could invite that congregation to.

We also got 3 new tires for the van, two were balding and one had a screw in it, that made a slow leak, and it was too close to the rim of the tire for them to fix.

Church was awesome.  It was nice to be in a Ward Council with an agenda, and looking back at the last minutes and following up with assignments.  Especially after the World Wide Leadership Training broadcast, it was a very effective meeting.  As my last ward was very army oriented, this ward is very business oriented.  Church was great with Debbie and the Meachams there.

A member of the high council who is preparing a talk on temples, showed us a book that he said is the only other required read (besides the scriptures and temple handbooks) for temple presidents.  It is Temple Worship by Andrew C Skinner.  That is a book I want to get when I get back home.  Some good insights in there.

This next week is going to be busy.  With getting things started for a baptism, going on two blitzes with Elders Endicott and Greene, doing an interview for baptism in Ithica, plus getting our training ready for Zone Conference the following week (on the 21st).  I love staying busy.

I love you all, and hope you have a great week.

Elder Shurtz

Elmira

It has been crazy!  My suitcase and stuff are still sprawled all over the floor!

Wednesday I was picked up by Elder Nielson who was a past District Leader and was heading home.  Elder Buttler (another Zone Leader) worked with Elder Simmonds for the day.  Transfers were crazy.  We had a dozen new missionaries last transfer, and another dozen this transfer.  There wasn't even enough pizza to go around!  I was handed the keys to our 2010 Dodge Caravan (not my favorite year on mini-vans :), and drove to Ithica with Elder Cutler and Elder Gamble (both in my zone [Owego Zone]).  Then, I met Elder Duffin, and we drove to Elmira.  Elder Duffin is from Idaho.  He is actually a few transfers younger than me.  He loves football, basketball, and golf.  Tall (Katie!).  Great guy.

Thursday we tried to contact a few people, but spent a lot of time planning and preparing for the transfer.  That night we had dinner at a member's home, then drove to Auburn [Syracuse Zone Leaders] to spend the night (1.5 hr drive).  Then early Friday morning we headed to Utica for Zone Leader Council.  ZLC was amazing!  We have 10 zone leaders, so it was us and President and the Assistants to the President.  We talked about some of the challenges of the mission, what we want to train on for District Meetings and Zone Conference.  It was sweet to be in council with some awesome missionaries and president, working together to and receiving revelation on the correct path we should take.  Zone Leader Conference lasted from 9am to about 4pm.  At 5 pm we sat with the president in his office for a stake correlation meeting via phone conference.  The stake president and other leaders here are amazing!  Many are very successful business men, and know how to get things done in a timely fashion.  The ward is super missionary minded, and awesome at fellowshipping.

We are teaching an awesome family who are close to setting a baptismal date.  If you didn't know they were not members, you would assume they have been life-time!  Sweet family, with 3 kids.

Saturday we picked up a former investigator (Yolonda).  A great lady, who tries to do what is right.  We will be seeing her again on Tuesday.

We are also teaching some other people, but have not yet met them.

Today we have a huge to-do list (last of all is unpacking).  I'm going to get some more white shirts.  We have the nicest lady in the ward who washes and irons a few white shirts for us every week.  Yesterday she told me mine were brown not white :(.  lol.

Tomorrow and Wednesday we have to travel to our two districts (Owego East and West districts) to give training.  With the two districts, we have 4 areas each (8 in total, excluding us) and 20 missionaries (including us and senior couple in Ithica).

I think we have an exchange, training, blitz, zone conference, or something planned every week of the transfer.  Lots of time traveling (1800 miles or so a month).

I hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Shurtz