Another week (boring title)

May 7, 2017

Sorry for my lack of quality emails. No excuses I'm just getting lazy. However, I always get motivated when I see my buddy Dallin still sending funny emails despite the fact he's been out 3 weeks longer than me. I will not be taken down.

Well, to be honest not a lot happened this week, so maybe this would have been a better week to skip the email. Oh well. I'm already writing so bear with it.

This week I got a migraine and was knocked out most of the week. Not much more needed to be said than that lol. Talked to a specialist and he told me that I am what they call migraines. It's hereditary and nothing much I can do without medicine. Told me to just stick it out and get the medicine when I'm home lol. Funny guy I caught up a lot on my sleep and for the first time in 22ish months I felt really refreshed and lively again lol. Sleep is magical.

Let's see.... did anything else happen this week.... hmmmmmm

It was my birthday on Sunday and lots of people made that day very special. Not sure if it's because of how nice people are or because they felt a feeling of obligation. You see my birthday is on the first week of the month of May meaning that I have my birthday on fast Sunday once every 7 years.

(Okay some people reading this are not members (the majority) and thus don't understand fast Sundays....---> in our church we choose to not eat two meals on the first Sunday of every month. We have many reasons including: wanting to show our love and commitment to God's commandments, to become more humble, receive more blessings, etc...) there is a very brief summary of what it is.

If you understand nothing more just keep in mind I couldn't eat until dinner time (for us missionaries 8:00 or 9:00 at night). Never more have I wanted to pound cake in my face than the day I was restricted since 6:30am haha.

Well, it's been a while, but fasting when you get two cakes made for you is extremely difficult. It's okay though because I pounded basically a full cake that night :)

I'm enjoying life here and am really trying to soak up the rest of the time I have here.
As a buddy of mine once taught me in a time of need: "we always need to be raising the bar, so that we don't recede in our progression" Thanks Elder Hymas :)

Anyways, thanks for the emails, love, and support.

Hope you have a great week!


[Trying to learn breakdancing in the apartment (Enjoy!)]

Another beautiful week

April 16, 2017

Hello everyone! Sorry about my lack of quality emails and I guess the quantity has been pretty low too, but..... I'm going to do my best to really send good quality emails until the end of my mission.

Transfer calls came and I already left Kushiro and came to my new area in Sapporo. It is called atsubetsu and has the biggest ward in all of Hokkaido. I'm super excited to work with the members here and really get as much work done as I can before I head home.

My apartment is right next to the newly dedicated Sapporo temple and I get walk by it every day. it is such a privilege. The view from our apartment window is just magnificent.

Shoot this email is turning boring like I didn't want it to lol oh well....

I want to make this week's email awesome, but to be honest I just did a lot of stuff with transfers and most of the week consisted of getting used to my new area/ meeting the ward/ etc...

There was a wedding reception one of the first days here and it was a good chance to talk to a lot of people and get to know members and non members. I even talked to a kid who was one of our investigators a couple months back in Kushiro. Apparently his sister was in the atsubetsu ward and he went down for the wedding. Nice to catch up with him and hopefully he will start to listen to the lessons a little bit more seriously and see the blessings that he can receive.

I've recently had the amazing privilege of being able to do a lot of workshops to a huge variety of missionaries. I get to share why I love this gospel, how we can become more effective missionaries, my
personal testimony, etc... it's been such a privilege and is really strengthening my testimony a lot.

Well I hope you all have a great week and can overcome your trials.

Thanks for all the love


[Cutest baby in our ward. I love her!]

Day by day and 38 seconds

April 2, 2017

Shout-out to my homegirl Meggie on her birthday!! (Meggie wrote this, not Steven... he forgot about her birthday... ;) )

Hello everyone. I don't really remember a whole lot from last week(I actually do, I'm just too lazy to try and remember what I did), but luckily I have my schedule right here with me and I will go ahead and give a weekly update of what I did.

Monday: we had a normal preparation day of shopping and eating sushi. Got a migraine later that night and decided to hit the pillow at 7ish and woke up at 6:30 the next morning fine lol

Tuesday: spent the whole day knocking doors looking for people to teach and no body really listened. It's okay though because things are good over here and we were inside a building when it started pouring snow lol. It could've been worse. I used to hate the long housing hours, but now I use it to memorize hymns in Japanese from house to house and really work on being more humble and patient.

Wednesday: we had his awesome miracle! Found this guy named makoto SAN doing the same thing we do every day.... knocking doors yo. Lol. Anyways, this guy let us in he first time we met him and we were
actually able to  met him 2 more times this week. He has his own religion and doesn't really have a desire to change religions, but I know the spirit will soften his heart. He is seriously so sick. Please pray for him!

Thursday: we also have this investigator couple (not married, but live together) who are just so busy that they can never seem to meet, but always come to English class. We decided to make pancakes and eggs for them and asked them to skip dinner and come to the church early (before English class) so we can eat together and talk. It was way fun to eat with them, and then we were able to teach lesson 1. We taught the full lesson 1 a lot this week and it was an awesome week of testifying through the spirit.

Friday: kind of boring. Made a plan to eat ice cream with a less active at the church because it was his birthday. Wanted him to make the step of coming back to the church building again. He stood us up :/ lol we still ate ice cream haha

Saturday: we had an activity where my companion and I make pancakes, eggs, sausage, etc... (an American breakfast) while the members mark up and write their testimonies in a bunch of book of Mormons we ordered. It was way sad because I called and texted everyone and only one member came in the beginning. I literally got 10-20 replies about how the members couldn't go and not a single person said they could. However, three more members came at the very end and we were able to fill out a lot of book of Mormons and have a good time.

Sunday: taught makoto SAN again and I'm hoping things go very well for him.

Sorry for the boring day by day. In my free time right before bed I have been doing two things. Reading lots of general conference talks and trying to master the advanced method of the Rubix cube. Got my
record down to 38 seconds last night.

Have a great week!

[Us during district training meeting (not my comp. but a guy in my apartment)]

Blessings on blessings on blessings

March 26, 2017

Look at my life man that's lessons on lessons on lessons. Sorry for the big Sean reference.

Hello everyone! This week we had lots of splits with other missionaries, but on top of that we literally had so many awesome miracles that I want to write a little bit about.
First off, I didn't write an email last week so no one knows about this but I learned, once again, the importance of inviting people.

We have this investigator named kuriki SAN that my last companion and I found about 3-4 weeks ago that seemed kind of strong but can only meet on weekends. He is in a thing called jietai, which is basically just like he japanese military service. He spends his weekends with his family and I don't want to interrupt that precious time, but felt a prompting to call and invite him to church. He said he would talk with his family and it seemed to be pretty weak to be honest. Sorry for my lack of faith. Well, he came with his wife and their 3 daughters. The ward just loved them because there are basically no families in this ward and everyone fellowshipped them very very nicely. They seemed to really have a good time, but the daughters had a blast. We are going to try and work through them lol

The other miracle occurred on Friday night while my companion and I were knocking doors from 10-2 in the morning. We weren't finding anyone and it seemed to be a waste of time. To be honest, we weren't in the very nicest area either and it didn't seem like people would listen. We decided to move area just enough to separate from where we were and my comp. felt a prompting to go housing in this gross looking, old white building. I've learned enough on my mission to know to follow promptings even when you feel like they might be wrong. Good
choice elder Scheidt! Well we found someone!

Not just someone, but we found a less active named sister saitou who had been less active for about 30-35 years. She had a problem with the word of wisdom and didn't feel clean at church, so she stopped coming. Well. She was finally able to overcome this problem a little while ago and had thought about coming to church a lot over the past 35 years. She just never had the push to come back and so she didn't.

We found her and she came to our activity on Saturday and asked to meet with the branch president to start the repentance process. She then came to church the next day and all the older members remembered her and literally everyone was crying, hugging, etc... it was such a touching moment on my mission. She's literally already an active member again. It is so awesome!

On top of that, another less active came back to church who had cancer and hasn't been in over 20-25 years. People eat her right up and the whole branch just seemed to have so much love.

My companion and I were so happy and it was such an awesome moment to watch these people relive the happiness of the gospel. I'm grateful for the experiences I have out here and they help me grow closer and closer to my savior every day.

Love you all! Have a great week!

敬具 (sincerely yours)
ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)


[Bought the watch on he left last week!]


[Here we are after a long day]


[DK]

Time is flying

March 12, 2017

It's crazy to me how old I am as a missionary and how fast time is flying. Doing my best to not think about it and just work hard. I want to make these last 3 months the best 3 months! Loving the time out here and trying to make the most of it!

We had a zone training meeting this week and everyone came down to Kushiro to stay in our apartment. We had a ton of fun spiritually as well as physically.
We played dodgeball as a zone in the church parking lot and it was super legit. My body was aching a lot afterwards. Jeez I am out of shape. I'll probably need to go on runs a lot when I get home. We also had a little devotional where we asked 3 people to pick a favorite church video and testify about it to the rest of the zone. After that person testifies, it is free for anyone else to testify if they want to. Really good spiritual experience and something I've never done on my mission before.

Our baptismal date Hitoshi kun is doing alright I think. His date is set for this Saturday and he passed his interview with the mission president on Friday last week. However, he doesn't seem to be super excited to be baptized (kind of feels indifferent) and so we are questioning whether he really has the desire to follow Christ or not. We don't want him getting baptized for us and If he doesn't have the faith yet, we want to wait a little longer and help him develop that faith.
It's an interesting situation because he follows all the commandments and wants to be baptized, but isn't super excited about it? I'm not really sure, but we have another interview this week and if things are okay he will probably be baptized this Saturday! I'm so excited for him. Please pray for him.

Other than that, we have nothing really going for us in the area and are finding a lot. If anyone has any tips on how to find people to listen to us, feel free to let us know.

I'm so grateful for this church and the wonderful things I've learned on my mission. I grow closer to my savior every day and there's no where I would rather be than here right now. The gospel is true and was restored by a true prophet Joseph smith. I know these things and they have brought me so much happiness. I really do love my Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ!

Hope everyone has a great week.

Thanks for everything

敬具 (sincerely yours)

ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)

[Here is our zone and Hitoshi kun. The kid all the way to the left is my mission grandson. I trained a new missionary and the kid to the left was trained by my bean. Pretty rare to meet a grandchild in the mission :)

The zone is obihiro zone but we call it BRObihiro zone. Sorry sisters]

No time sorry

March 5, 2017

Don't have like anytime because we are doing a zone activity today, but I'm living and doing well.

I've been teaching a guy named Hitoshi San for about a little over 3 months and we finally were able to make a solid baptismal date with him and that date is for the March 18th. He will be having an interview pretty soon but still has a couple problems we need to resolve, so we will see what happens. But it's been such a blessing to lead him up to this far and watch him grow. Please pray for him. I've grown to love him so much

Love you all and hope you have a great week!

敬具 (sincerely yours)
ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)


[Here's me solving a rubix cube right before bed]



[A guy in my apartment came at me with the door. It was pretty scary]

Lots of interesting things

February 19, 2017

Hello!
This week was full of lots of crazy events so I'm going to do a daily breakdown it's been a while.

Monday: had our p day and walked 45 minutes to bistari bistarai. Does anyone remember that place? It's the place where they have the all you can eat nan and amazing curry. I haven't been there in 4-5 transfers, so it was way nice to stuff my face until I couldn't walk home anymore. That night we also had interviews with the mission president which were only 15 minutes. Not a lot of time = not a lot of content

Tuesday: we had zone conference where we got trained by the mission pres. And his assistants. Butt........ The highlight of today was our lesson with Hitoshi kun. So, if you don't remember, he is the one who just has a couple commandment problems. Other than that he has already heard all the lessons, loves church and comes every week. We are working with him, but anyways... He couldn't believe that he was one of the only people that will listen to our message. We told him he was our most progressing and then He got this made fire to go out and proselyte. We walked around together for an hour and tbh he kind of worked the crud out of me. He was running around to every person he say and just yelled out: " hey we are teaching about Christ. Etc..." It was pretty intense and a way interesting experience for sure lol

Wednesday: had all day to work, but met a lot of people today

Thursday: nothing worth writing about lol

Friday: alright I'm just going to skip to Saturday cause that was interesting

Saturday: we had literally 11:30-9:00 of nothing planned. We don't have a lot of people to teach and needed to do some good finding... We planned to meet with Hitoshi kun for 1-2 hours, but he got busy and couldn't meet. We literally housed and found all day in the cold. I've never been so tired and discouraged in my whole mission. We couldn't even get 10 people to open the door to us. Walked around in -5 degree Celsius weather and only talked to maybe 8 people face to face.

My comp and I basically died in every way possible...... But! Don't worry we are doing okay. We got back to the apartment that night and were just depressed with the other two elders who had almost the exact same day.
We decided we needed something fun in the apartment and so we waxed our legs.

That's all I'm going to say and leave it all with the videos. As dumb as it sounds, it cheered us up a lot! :)

Have a great week everyone!

We got screamed at by a drunk guy foaming from the mouth last night in the little time we had outside. It was a good first experience! Love you all

敬具 (sincerely yours)
ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)


[I'm sorry mom. I just wanted to feel the pain women feel.]

[Here is hitoshikun with us after church. Sickest guy I've met in Japan.]

[Bistari bistari]



[Snow festival in Sapporo. Can't go this year because I'm in Kushiro :/ oh well]

久々メールします

February 12, 2017

Hello everyone. As the title says... Long time no see

Sorry for now emailing for such a long time. Here has been lots of stuff going on lately and I've been a little stressed and busy, but things are okay now.

So i have some interesting news! An emergency transfer happened and I got a new companion. My old companion elder Yamaoka had a bit of a hard time recently and I don't want to go into too much detail (especially over email), but the transfer was for his health and things should be getting better for him from now on. I loved him and learned a lot from our 9 weeks together. My new companion is elder morse from North Carolina. He came to Japan only a month and a half after I did and it's his first time going zone leader. He's a super awesome missionary and we are just having a blast. Joao see is stellar and we are getting by lol.

To be honest, because of lots of things occurring lately it's been hard to get out and work 110%, but now that things are resolved I'm back working super hard outside and it feels amazing. We got rejected so hard for 8 hours the other day! I loved it! I try to think of rejections as a good thing. It's like the blessings/ miracles are waiting and to receive those blessings your rejections stack up and eventually just burst and all the blessings come. I know that didn't really make sense, but it's okay. Just know that I'm doing great and loving life right now.

We have a zone conference tomorrow and will be trained by the president, his wife, and the assistants to the president. Looking forward to learning a lot. We are going to be trained on how to find people to teach for one section. I'm super excited! We are struggling to find people to teach and I am more than willing to try new ways other than knocking doors all day. I've found it isn't necessarily effective/ but it is necessary to some extent in missionary work. I've been brainstorming a lot and we will see what comes from it.

We are still testing hitoshikun who has basically heard all the lessons and has already finished the Book of Mormon. He's onto the bible now and I swear his knowledge is too high. He is asking hard questions that sometimes I don't even know the answer to haha. He is super close, but just has a couple more commandment problems (like we all do). If everyone could please pray for him... He needs the blessings.

Thanks so much for all the support I get out here. I couldn't be out here without the sacrifice lots of wonderful people have made in my life. Recently I have been reflecting a lot about how amazing my family is and how I would only want to be part of my family. I'm so grateful to God for such a wonderful family. I love everyone so much and would do anything for them.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Love you...

敬具 (sincerely yours)
ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)


[Me and my buddy elder kashiwa. Probably the last time I will see him before he goes home :( nooo]



[We both said " oh shoot I need a picture of you for my family/ friends." did this to each other. Not sure what I look like in the picture he took, but whatever]

Transfers!

January 22, 2017

Hey so we got transfer calls and I stayed in the same area with the same companion. It's the first time I've done that my whole mission besides training (which is almost 9/10 times 2 transfer together). I was pretty surprised, but I love the area and the people here, so I'm excited to work hard.

Basically the whole week was spent taking/ picking people up from the bus stop and figuring out what we will do for the zone/ area this transfer.

Sorry I don't have a whole ton of time or details, but I'm doing good and still alive.
My motivation for writing these mass emails decreases every week along with my buddy Dallin, but I'll feel a little guilty if I don't at least try, so here is my attempt for this week.

We have some meeting about all the changes to mission work worldwide and so I will be in Sapporo most of the week. Yes, it's a 6 hour bus ride from Kushiro to Sapporo. I finally get time to nap and not feel guilty as a missionary. :)

Have a great week. Hope you enjoyed the egg video last week!

敬具 (sincerely yours)

ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)

[No new pics, but these are my new puppies. Aren't they cute?]

Sorry for the last 2 weeks

January 15, 2017

Alright I wasn't planning on sending a weekly email this week either, but both my parents asked why I haven't and I felt a little guilty.

To begin, I don't have much to report on. I hurt my Achilles in the beginning of this transfer (5-6 weeks ago) and have mostly been sitting in the apartment resting. The doctors say if I don't rest and stop walking so much it won't heal, so I have been trying to make the best use of my time.

Here's what I've done a lot of in the last transfer:
- make tons and tons of origami
- read a lot of the Japanese Book of Mormon (right now I'm in alma 30)
- Cleaned the apartment spotless countless times
- clean up the area book and do little things to make time better for dendo
- making lots of appointments at the church and meeting people there
- eating lots of food
- making cookies
- think
- play cards

To be honest, I just want to get out and work again. I forgot what free time is like and it's been so boring haha. But.... Transfers are this week and my Achilles is actually starting to feel better, so I'm excited to get back at it no matter what condition I'm in.

We taught our most progressing  investigator aizawa San and tried to make another baptismal date because the first date got dropped. Right now he's in the end half of alma and just doesn't want to commit to baptism because he's afraid of breaking commandments and thinks they are really strict. I believe he will get baptized sometime just not sure in my generation, 1-2 years, etc... He said he wants to finish the Book of Mormon and maybe the bible too before he decides any life changes like baptism. He's so cool I love him!

Hope everyone has a great week I'll look for some sick pictures or videos to send

敬具 (sincerely yours)
ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)


[This is from New Years. We have a small branch and this is one of the three meals members fed us :)]


[Here's the squad]



[Elders need to find fun sometimes okay...]