August take 2, and updates on Savanna/Mckay and Weston

I didn't have time to finish some important August stuff so here are a few more details, like I put pinwheels on my daughter Lilian's grave on August 22 in the rain. :) We celebrated Everlight's birthday on August 24th and she loved the shirt I found for her. And I was able to go see Jesse and Kelsy in action at BYU's Education week Lightweave booth. I'm so happy for the success they are having with that!

More pictures of the barn, including the awesome hay elevator Jared and I installed so we can get hay into the loft. Took some trial and error but we made it work! 

I haven't' given an update recently on Savanna and McKay, they are still in Portland and he is doing really well in the jewelry smithing program and Acing his tests. They have enjoyed the beautiful foliage up there and take hikes and excursions whenever they can. Trying to save their money though, its tight paying for school and relying on only Savanna's income. She did find a job care-taking an elderly woman full time which she really likes. Its a bit of a drive and makes for tiring days but its somethin to do! Their apartment is quite tiny and stuffy but what memories they are making these four months in Oregon!

I also will include a couple emails from Weston. He is doing really well and I'm so grateful for the protection and care God has given him as he has persevered though some crazy times on his mission. He found time to choreograph, write, adn record a music video in Bage which is totally hilarious and fun, makes me happy. I'm still in awe of the recent miracle, he references it in his email (that happened technically in September but who knows if I'll have time to post it later so here it is!) but for me it was even more of a big deal. I had been trying to get him shoes for a while because his were so worn out after 10 months, but we couldn't figure out an affordable way to do it and were blocked from doing it via amazon brazil. To have a random lady who wasn't even interested in the church hand them a bag of four pairs of shoes that fit perfectly for him and his companion was nothing short of miraculous and a direct answer to my prayers. God is watching over his missionaries! 

Sep 7 2023

We're officially in a new transfer! Which is why I'm writing this letter today. I will be staying with my companion Elder Moyano here in Tiaraju, but I am also the new district leader of Bagé! I hope I can be a good leader these next coming weeks for the missionaries here. 

This last week we had a lot of new lessons with a lot of new people. We have three people with a baptismal date, and one is for this Saturday! Raul's mom, Raul being the one we baptized two weeks ago, and she's super ready! She's absolutely loved every visit and lesson we've had with her. So we hope everything goes to plan! 

One more miracle this last week- basically I've been needing some new shoes for a while, one day me and my comp miraculously obtained some! There we were, teaching a woman about the restoration, testifying the truth of the Lord's church and the book of Mormon. The woman wasn't convinced that the Book of Mormon was true, and kept telling us that there isn't a true church. Then out of nowhere she asked us if we could accept shoes, because she had a brother-in-law who was trying to give some of his away. She left and came back a couple minutes later with a grocery bag full and let us try them on. They fit perfectly! She let us take them all. That was a cool experience that taught us that God really does look out for his servants. 

Other than that we've been working on a cool project of the official Zone song! I'll see if I can find a way to share a link or something. If you have a hard time accessing it let me know. I think it turned out pretty slick!

Hope you all remember the blessings God promises when we do what he says. I sincerely know that he never asks us to do anything that we're not capable of accomplishing. He always provides a way! Love you all and have a great week.

-Elder Schauers 

A MÚSICA DA ZONA BAGÉ: 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/wFTbmy1c4Lxzx3sa6

August 28th:

Hey all hope you're all doing swimmingly. Let's not delay with a lengthy intro and just hop right back into Elder Schauers' life and see what's been up lately! 

First up, the other elders who were supposed to be living with us this whole transfer finally got moved in! We were lacking some beds closets and desks for them so they were previously living in the ZLs house with is a bit farther from their area. Now that we've revieced those few necessities, they're with us now, and going from 2 to 4 makes everything a looot less roomy. Not to mention these two elders are some of the craziest in the mission so there's no such thing as peace that still exists in our home. But we'll manage! 

One more fantastic multizone meeting in the books from this last week, I always learn so much stuff from President and Sister Silva that I don't think about that changes the way I see missionary work, and not to mention it's always an amazing opportunity to catch up with all the elders and sisters you meet throughout the mission. Our ZLs also had a great idea to make hoodies of the zone and pull up to the meeting with everyone wearing them ya know representing. So that's exactly what we did hahahahahaha and everyone loved it. We got halfway through the President's message when he pulled out the manuel and read to us the part about not using any form of merchandise of the mission or zones and kindly asked everyone in the zone to take them off. We forgot about that detail, but I'd say it was worth it for the memory. 

We had one more baptism!!! Raul is seriously the most elect person I've ever met. He'd recently completely stopped with alcohol, smoking, and drugs and got so excited when we marked his baptismal date. The next Sunday he told everyone about his baptism. And yesterday we taught his mom who also excepted a baptismal date! We're super happy for Raul and his family learning about this gospel. On my mission I witness so strongly the power of the Atonement happening in the lives of everyone I meet. I promise that it's never too late to enter back into fold of God and relieve his blessings no matter how far you've strayed off the covenant path. He's constantly waiting ready to except us again after losing our way. Nothing in this world is more powerful than the mercy and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. 

I'll leave it there for this week! Let me know if you'd like to know anything else, I sure love you all and hope you have a stupendous week full of God's miracles.

-Elder Schauers 

August 14

Hey friends! Hope everything is well with each one of you. Let's not waste any time and just jump right into the last couple weeks of craziness of my life! 

First off, I've been training an amazing and brand new missionary named Elder Moyano, who's from Buenas Aires Argentina! So Spanish has been a real blast. It is similar to Portuguese but we've definitely had a few moments of misunderstanding haha. But he's learning the new language super fast. We've been seeing lots of miracles in this area together! 

Two weeks into the transfer we've had two baptisms! Eustaquio and Samuel. They're both amazing!! We've also had a lot more of our investigators come to sacrament meeting. We've been seeing lots of miracles in this area that seem to never happen. God has certainly been blessing us with a lot more sucess as we apply more love, diligence, and obedience in our work. I promise that God does his part when we do ours. 

This last week we found a woman named Helenara who is amazing!!! We were in the front of her house talking with her mom when out of no where she opened the window telling us to pass by her house another day during the afternoon. On Saturday we had an epic visit where she explained that she used to talk to the missionaries a long time ago and also used to study the Book of Mormon. After losing her dad, she's been searching for a better connection with God to help her feel better. And the next day we got her to sacrament meeting with she also loved! If you guys could pray for her we would sure appreciate it. 

One detail we realized this week is that our ward has a lot of problems with the members and the relationship with the missionaries. A while ago this area had missionaries who were suuper disobedient and kind of lot the trust of the members. After about 7 months, my previous companion and I reopened the area and we didn't know about that. And I didn't realize there were still hard feeling until these last couple weeks after talking with a few members. Buut tomorrow we're sharing a project with the members called the Ovelha Achada, or the found sheep, to help the members learn a few things about missionary work and help repair some of the damage that was done by the other missionaries. So wish us luck with that! 

Sooo yeah lots of stuff happening here in Bagé, and as always, it's impossible to cover everything that goes on in the craziness that is missionary life. If you have any more questions about anything let me know! Love you all and I'll catch you later.

-Elder Schauers 

August 2023

This month was a recovery month for me, a frantic keep-the-barn-build-going month for Jared, and a spend-some-one-on-one-time-with-parents for Fiora. 

HAWAII

I got to go to Maui with my dear sisters in law Wendy Snow, Amy Schauers, Shawna Schauers, and Kim Purcell August 6-11. We arrived late Sunday night and Monday the hurricane-like winds started. I stayed inside due to being overstimulated by the wind and very tired, but the other ladies ventured to the beach and got plastered with sand! We were all grateful hurricane Dora stayed more south in the Pacific ocean until Tuesday when the fires started. We managed to drive early to the top of Halakelea mountain and see the sunrise, and saw the beginnings of fire and we were dodging fallen trees on the road. The winds knocked down power lines, and I guess Maui has been experiencing a drought so all the dry grass and trees caught brush fire in two parts of the island. We tried our best to stick to our itinerary, and we always felt safe, but things started shutting down as the fire devastation got worse and worse Wednesday and Thursday. Lahaina burned down and several hundreds of people died, thankfully we were staying in Kihei but we saw a lot of other people visiting Lahaina sleeping out of their cars and unable to get back to their venues. We still were able to hike and visit beaches and had a great time together, we felt thankful a canceled snorkeling excursion and a shortened hike to Pipiwei falls was our only inconvenience. That was a small priced to pay considering how much other people lost there, the world is truly in commotion wherever you go. At any rate, for me it was still a break from work and a great memory!

FIORA

We loved having Fiora stay with us for a month before she left for New Zealand. She was such a great help to me cleaning the house after the guests left, doing much needed and neglected yard work, and helping Jared at the farm. They got to go on an outing while I was in Hawaii, and when I got back Jared went camping with the Jensens so I got some one on one time with her too. We went to the Zoo for my company retreat and had an enchanting time. We all wen kayaking at deer creek one evening which was also enchanting. I was able to hep her get ready to go--shop for luggage and supplies, packing list and stuff. But I must say how impressed I was with all the adulting type things she had to do on her own and did so well! She came with us to see Lindon days rodeo and for the parade I got to help carry the gigantic American flag. We got to see "Sound of Music" at Sundance with her, I got to support her and cheer her on in her first ever 10 K race which she did amazing at, and Jared took her to get blizzards with him whenever he could. She left on August 21st, I took the day off work and we did last minute errands and watched a movie and waited for the hour to come to drive to the airport. So sad shopping her off for 6 months for this work abroad experience I was praying for her like crazy. She had a very long wait at the airport due to a delayed flight but made it all the way around the world safely. She spent 4 days in Auckland and then off to Gisborne where she is going to be working. So many prayers were answered as so many people have helped her and got her set up with everything she needs there. She even found a cheap car to get her around. God is Good! How I missed having her there after work that first week after she was gone! 

THE BARN

Jared has been working morning and night on projects at the barn and the farm. He has the regular chores like mucking stalls and feeding horses and goats on top of irrigating the field, putting lights up and ordering help and doors and windows etc. He built the dutch doors for the stalls and the tack room door. He put together the stall dividers and has used the tractor in various ways to push gravel and dirt around. he has loaded hay bales and built a hay elevator. He takes the horses and goat out on rides/walks every week. I'm very impressed with all he has accomplished. Admittedly sometimes I get a little frustrated that the only way I can connect with Jared is to follow him and help him with whatever needs to be done there, but that's only frustrating when he spends his precious free time with other people because I'm jealous ha ha. Truly I love working hard and working with him is very bonding. He supports me in my work and I support his. He only shows the barn to the people he loves because he doesn't want to brag about this accomplishment, so I'm bragging for him. It's a beautiful structure!