Week 69 ~ November 14, 2016 ~ Trump

Well the news of the week has been the same here as I suppose it is there. Everyone wants to hear my opinion on our future president. I don't really have a lot to say but I feel bad because a lot of the people here have pretty good reason to not love him.  But I do think that it's too early to know how anything will turn out and I feel grateful that regardless of the country's leaders are I know that the church is headed by a prophet of God. 

Um... As far as missionary work goes there isn't a whole lot to report. It was really rainy here last week which makes it hard for us to find people to teach because no one leaves their house. But we have two investigators progressing. I will update you more next week because, as always, I am out of time. 

Oo! Fun fact, the mission president’s wife sent me to get acupuncture for my back. It was a crazy experience. I'll send pictures next week. 

Love,

Hermana Schmidt

Week 68 ~ November 7, 2016

I don't have a lot of time, but I put the only picture I took this week. My district leader (Elder Ruiz), who has been my district leader for 7 transfers now and has basically become like a brother to me, and I started a diet (he's going home at the beginning of December) and this was the piece of pizza he cut for me. Jaja. 

Happy November. Don't forget about Thanksgiving. 

 Hermana Schmidt

Week 67 ~ October 31, 2016 ~ Halloween/Día de Muertos

Happy Halloween! They basically don't celebrate Halloween here (there are some people who have parties or kids who go trick or treating but... that's about it) but everyone asks about it. A lot of people think that it's a satanic holiday and can't believe that the church lets us celebrate it. I'm not really sure still how to explain that but I don't feel like it's necessarily satanic. 

This week was a little challenging because they changed the boundaries of our area and the majority of our recent converts and several investigadores we were left with very little work. But that just meant we had to dedicate more time to finding. Which always goes super poorly in this area but... At least we were making an effort. And we saw some results and hope to see more in the coming weeks. 

Today, in celebration of Halloween, we got together with the elders of our district to carve pumpkins. They said that our companionships pumpkins turned out looking just like me, but I'll let you decide that 

Have a great week.

Hermana Schmidt

Week 66 ~ October 24, 2016

Week 65 ~ October 17, 2016

Hola Familia,

I ran out of time last week and I am almost out of time again. (Even after almost 15 months I'm still not great at managing my email time. Jaja.) The exciting news for today is that we have a baptism scheduled for Saturday!!! Moises is finally going to be baptized. I think about how much I have seen him change the last few months and I feel so amazed at what the gospel can do for people. He stopped smoking and working on Sundays. Started living the law of chastity and studying the scriptures every day. And it shows, in his face even, the change that he's had. He always tells us that God is blessing him in every part of his life, even his business is doing better. Those are the kind of miracles that happen every day in the lives of the people that the missionaries teach.

Well.... I think that was the exciting news for this week. I hope to be sending pictures next week which will be a new transfer, but will almost surely find me here in San Luis.

Love you all!

Hermana Schmidt

Week 64 ~ October 10, 2016

Week 63 ~ October 3, 2016

Well Conference was amazing as usual. I don't know if you guys noticed how much they talked about joy. I loved that because living the gospel really does bring so much joy into my life and one of the greatest blessings of being a missionary is spending all of my time trying to share that joy with the people here. One of my favorite statements was from Presidente Nelson when he said "The unrighteous can experience many emotional sensations but the will never know joy."

This week a flat out miracle happened. The mission is full of miracles but sometimes they happen so slowly that you don't really notice, but this one was obvious. We were in companion exchanges and it was almost time to go to the house for the night. We decide to knock on one more door and walked a few blocks to an address that we had from a contact that the other missionaries had left in the area book from almost 2 years ago (we're getting a little creative in order to find people to teach). When we knocked on the door someone asked who without opening. We asked for the name we had and the voice told us that she didn't live there. Something told me to keep talking to her so I did and she opened the door. We explained that we were missionaries and wanted to share a message with her. We were pretty much shocked when she invited us in. I thought "She's either someone who is really prepared or she is going to murder us. That's a risk I'm going to have to take." When we were walking in she said to me "God sent you to me, didn't he?" I told her that He had. Turns out she was really prepared. She started telling us about how she's always tried to do what God asks and that right now she is attending a Christian church but has been feeling that God was going to introduce her to another church and was pretty sure that we had come to her house in answer to her pray to know where God wanted her to go. We had almost no time to teach her, and we didn't even have a Book of Mormon to give her, but regardless she accept another visit and came to the Sunday Morning session of conference. I hope we will be able to continue to see miracles with her and in our area. 

Everyone else is still progress. We have an investigator with a baptismal date for Saturday but she only has been taught the lesson about the restoration, so I think we'll probably be waiting at least another week. The point is that people are prepared not just that they agree so we will give her all the time she needs. 

Pray for us. And watch conference again. I would love to but we unfortunately still don't have iPads. #mexicoproblems

Have a great week.

Hermana Schmidt