family first

Hey Family!

 

How are y'all doing?  Thank you for always writing, Mom and Dad!  Hey and before I forget to answer your question...I've been wearing my retainer every night so we'll see what ends up happening there.  So nah, I don't think I need to go see the orthodontist down here, I'll just wait until I get home.  Thank you for trying to figure everything out! 

 

Dude, Emily went to mission prep last night!  That's so exciting!  Not that my opinion counts or anything...but a mission is definitely worth it.  So think about it.  :)  it's amazing to say the least.  Who's teaching it by the way? 

 

And Andrew's flying down to New Zealand this weekend.  Goodness you're just traveling all over the world lately.  Lucky you!

 

Hey Sarah while I was thinking about it with my deferment from school it said I have to do something a couple months before I get back but I can't remember what that is.  So could ya go on and try to figure that out when you got a little time?  Thank you so much!

 

Oh yeah, did y'all hear?  They called the new mission president that will be coming in July.  This is what President Wall sent to us: 

 

"Some of you may have already heard from friends or family that the Church News listed the newly called mission presidents and their wives over the weekend. For those of our missionaries that have not heard, Reed Hansen and his wife Mary Anne, from Boise, Idaho have been called to preside over the Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission, beginning July 1st of this year. Sister Wall and I had the pleasure of talking with soon-to-be-President Hansen and sharing with him the great blessing he will have in serving with each of you. We could tell from our conversation that he has a wonderful spirit and desire to love and work along side you.

We thought you might like to read a comment that was on the web site where the announcement was listed.

"Baton Rouge, Louisiana Mission: You are about to get outstanding leadership in Reed & Mary Anne Hansen. Reed was our Bishop in Boise a few years ago. He and his wife are such loving, kind, and wonderful leaders and friends. We were so excited when we heard about this call. Mary Anne is from the South and will feel right at home in their new setting. Lucky missionaries; lucky people in Louisiana mission!""

 

Sounds pretty exciting huh?  Man it's a bummer though that I'll have one transfer left after President and Sister Wall go home.  I'm gonna miss them so much!

 

To describe this week in one word I would say freezing!  Mom you were right when you said you got these feelings that I was gonna need warm clothes.  For a couple days it got down in the 20s and the high was in the 30s but with the humidity the cold just goes straight to your bones.  Luckily the weather's getting back up there and it's in the 60s again. 

 

There's been so many tender mercies from this past week I don't even know where to begin!  

 

I guess the first was monday evening.  We were trying to find this less active that someone asked us to see.  Well this lady answered the door and we asked if so and so lived there and she said no...she moved away.  But it was freezing cold out so she quickly invited us in!  Well, the less active we were looking for is her daughter.  But long story short Blanche, the lady that let us in is super nice!  Her daughter and her husband are members of the church so when she visits them she goes to church with them.  Her son in law taught her all about the church but she's one of those born catholic die catholic people.  We asked her if it'd be alright if we came and taught her again even though she doesn't want to convert and she said yes.  So we're going over tomorrow!  She's just a super sweet lady...offered for us to come over whenever we wanted to and she said she'd do anything..take care of us when we're sick, feed us, everything.  She's basically like our mission grandma.  Man, she's just the sweetest and I'm super excited!

 

Another little tender mercy was we got to rake Bettie's leaves with all the Elders.  And let's just say she's got a billion leaves, but for real.  I think it would've taken probably around a hundred bags to bag them up so we just piled them up on the road and burned them.  It was a lot of fun and she was super grateful.  Now as soon as it quits raining we're gonna have to go back over and finish up the rest of her yard. 

 

Our investigator Ama came to church yesterday too!  The sisters have been teaching her since around June but she's a born and raised catholic that doesn't want to change.  She's pregnant and due in march though and I think it'll just be a matter of time before she joins the church.  She's from Venezula and is the sweetest lady.  Everyone loves her!

 

This week is gonna be a crazy one!  Elder Perkins of the Seventy is coming down for a mission tour so on thursday we got to go to zone conference in Baton Rouge.  I think it's gonna be more like a mission reunion because the whole mission will be there except the New Orleans and New Orleans Spanish Zones.  I'm excited to hear what he'll instruct us on.  And then Saturday and Sunday we have stake conference down in New Orleans and he'll be speaking down there as well.  So we'll be getting to drive all over down here this week. 

 

Transfers are next week too.  I kinda feel like I'm leaving but not sure...what do y'all think? 

 

A scripture I wanted to share with y'all this week is 1 John 4:16 "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."  That is what everything is all about, love.  The love God has for us is so unbelievably much and he always will love us, that's the amazing thing.  While serving on my mission I've met some amazing people, completely amazing.  I think the amazing people are the ones that you can immediately feel their love radiating around you.  I can instantly name just a couple of them and those include Dale and Blanche.  Those two I've only talked to both of them for maybe fifteen minutes at the most.  But you could just feel this love and concern radiating off of them.  We visited Blanche on one of the freezing cold nights and I just had a little jacket on because I didn't think it'd be that cold.  Haha here's the experience...she tells me she'll be right back.  She goes and grabs twenty bucks and hands it to me telling me to go buy a hat.  I try to convince her that I do have one and can't take her money but she won't take no for an answer.  In the meantime my eye just starts burning so then it looks like I'm crying.  Yes, my eyes are just weird...it'd do it all the time back at work and it will burn until I go put water in it.  Walking away from that experience I truly felt like someone really loved me here, and that was God's way of showing that he's watching out for me.  I guess what I'm trying to say is God shows us that he loves us through the people he puts in our lives.  And I'm so grateful for that. 

 

I just want to say that I love y'all so much.  Truly, I do.

 

Love Always, Sister Schmutz 

 

p.s. it's kinda a terrible picture but these are live oak trees.  I'll try to get a better one soon!       

 

new year brings new fortunes

Hey Family!

 

First I just want to say that 2014 has already been an amazing year so far...it's definitely going to be a good year.  Here's a crazy little tender mercy we were able to experience on saturday that explains why this year has already been so good.  :)  so we just got back from exchanges.  I was up in Amite with Sister Tiller and Sister Brady was here with Sister Paulson.  So I asked Sister Brady what the plans were for the day and she said we were gonna go up to this neighborhood near Lake Ramsey to try some less actives.  Let me just say we've been up there a billion times and no one ever answers their door.  So I was just thinkin to myself...alright if ya say so...no one will answer though.  Low and behold the first less active, Dixie actually answered her door!  We didn't even get the chance to ask her if it was her, the first thing she said was come on in.  And then she straight up told us her concerns and why she's not coming to church.  Plus she said we could come back and visit more often.  Miracle I tell ya, miracle.  Then we go to the second less active, Michele and the exact same thing happened.  She opened her door and the first thing she said was come on in.  She told us her whole life story basically and all her concerns too and said we were welcome to come back.  It was definitely a good day!  Man, haha I couldn't believe we finally met them...I just walked away saying to myself what just happened!

 

Despite the fact that everyone and their dog is sick (literally, we went over to Joy's yesterday and her dog was throwing up all over the place).  I'm not sick yet though!  It's been a great start to the new year.  Family! I'm so happy the missionaries get to come over and teach y'all!  Mom, way to go to just get it scheduled...you can always just get anything done.  It'll be real sweet to have the spirit from the missionaries in the home.  :)

 

Let's see...other than that nothing too new has really happened this week.  We decided to go through the ward directory and meet every single person on it so that's what we've really been working on lately.  There's lots that aren't interested in letting us come in but that's okay, maybe it's just not their time right now.  But hey we're finding tons of sweet less actives that are willing to let us in and we're starting to build good relationships with them!  Plus we're finding more people to teach and visit.  After all, less actives don't hang out with active members...so it's true that we can find tons of people surrounded by our less active members.

 

Hmm I'm not sure what else to really say, sorry this email is so boring!  We were gonna go to New Orleans with Orisia today but she had to cancel yesterday because she has to take care of her patients with the cold weather since everyones getting sick.  Transfers is coming up pretty soon which is kinda crazy.  Time just keeps flying by. 

 

Oh hey here's a scripture I really like from my studies. In Alma 42 it talks alot about justice and mercy which I think isn amazing principle of the gospel.  God is just meaning that when we do something then we have to deal with the consequences.  "according to justice, the plan of redemption could not be brought about, only on conditions of repentance." (Alma 42:13)  If we had just the law of justice by itself it would be physically impossible because we can't repent of all our sins completely by ourselves.  But the key is God is also merciful.  He's merciful because he sent his son, Jesus Christ to the earth to accomplish the atonement so that we can be forgiven of our sins and we don't have to completely suffer alone.  "the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice." (Alma 42:15)  Justice and mercy work hand in hand and because of each other we are able to have to pay the consequences for our sins, but we also can receive the gift of mercy from the Savior.  It's simply amazing how Heavenly Father has an exact perfect plan for us and how he loves us so unbelievably much.

 

I love y'all oh so very much!  Not to mention I think you're pretty amazing.  :)

 

The computer keeps retyping over all my words and it's driving me crazy!  So I'll write y'all next week.

 

Love Always, Sister Schmutz

2014

Hey Family!

It was so good to see y'all on Christmas too.  Y'all definitely made my day and I loved seeing your bright and shining faces.  :)  thank you for being such an awesome family.  And I'm glad y'all liked the package I sent home.  Haha Mom, I'm glad I only have one Christmas away too.  I'm not gonna lie, I loved the days leading up to Christmas and getting to share so many messages about Christ with everyone but then after Christmas was over I just had no desire to do anything.  It didn't help that it rained practically all weekend and all I wanted to do was go home and crawl back in bed.  But hey the desire to keep going is back and I'm ready to work hard during this year.

Goodness gracious the craziest thing from the past week was yesterday.  During the 3rd hour of church Bishop Elmer had a combined lesson and he talked.  Seriously he's talked the last couple fifth sundays and in sacrament meeting a couple times on missionary work so the members are probably sick of it.  But yesterday he said that for 2014 our ward is gonna have a goal of 25 baptisms.  As far as I know we've only had two baptisms this whole year...but in 2011 they had 23 baptisms.  At first I was just thinkin man this is never gonna happen.  But ya know, when you trust in Heavenly Father he can make anything happen.  He challenged every person to invite someone to listen to the missionaries and he's constantly focusing on inviting others.  Covington Ward is part of the New Orleans Stake so our goal is to make a stake up here so we don't have to drive all the way across the causeway.  I think our bishop is inspired and knows what he's doing so it's pretty sweet to see how he's pushing to hasten the work of the Lord.  Now the members are just gonna have to step up so we have tons of people to teach!

But going along with that I think the true miracle from the week was yesterday we got to share the restoration with our investigator Orisia.  Let's just say we've been visiting her about every single week since I first got here but she talks a ton and we never get a chance to share a lesson before she kicks us out.  It was definitely a sweet experience because she already knew most of the restoration and about the Book of Mormon but we were able to clear up some questions she had and the spirit was definitely there.  We're going down to New Orleans with her next monday to go to some thrift stores...haha she's the one that got us hooked on shopping at the thrift stores.  Goodness I just love her!  She's a chinese medicine doctor and kinda crazy, but hey I love crazy people.  :)

Mom, don't worry I don't need a coat or anything.  Thank you for thinking about me!  Haha and I wish I could've heard your talk yesterday.  I bet ya did great!  I'm sure y'all are glad I didn't call you at 5:30 in the morning like McKenzie did.  I remember she did that last year too and I was really considering doing it to wake y'all up but then decided to opt out.

The week was a pretty good week overall, here's just a couple of the highlights:

Monday- Pulled our couch outside and played Life with the Covington Elders in the driveway of our apartment.  Haha our neighbors thought we were crazy and it was freezing but it was fun!

Tuesday- Made tons of cookies at Joy's house and then went caroling with the Elders and gave them to some people we knew and some random people with wrapped copies of the Book of Mormon.  Plus we found out Dale passed away...his niece said that on the way to the hospital he asked her to grab the peanut butter cookies we made to bring them!  Goodness he was the sweetest guy.  :)  She mentioned how he always talked about us!  Don't know if she was just being nice of if that's really true considering the fact we'd only met him twice and talked on his porch for maybe 5 minutes total.  But hey I know he's probably already found the missionaries in the spirit world and is listening to them right now.  I'm looking forward to the day when I'll get to see him again.  :)

Wednesday- Got to see y'all!!  Other than that we got to play checkers with the Tapia's and make some cookies.  And then helped the Holbrook's with a puzzle they got for Christmas.  Definitely a good Christmas....I'm thinking a puzzle every Christmas should be a new tradition.  Remember when we'd always go to Little Grandma's and she's be working on puzzles?  By the way be sure to tell her thank you so much for the blanket!  It keeps me warm everynight.  :)

Thursday- Here's a funny story for you.  It didn't happen this week but it happened at the Goff's and we visited them on thursday.  Maria asked us if we wanted an altoid but we told her no thank you we were good.  So this is what she says, "You sure?  These are special altoids...see right here it says they're made with real peppermint oil and the dreams of pregnant mermaids."  Haha I thought it really said that!

Friday- We updated our map since everyones names have fallen off...and we didn't know what else to do!

Saturday- All our plans fell through and we didn't know what else to do.  Perfect timing Sister McMullen called and asked if we could come clean up her house so we got to serve her!  That was just a little tender mercy of the Lord for providing us with something useful to do with our time.  Plus she's the sweetest lady.  Plus we met a new less active family that is willing to let us come back and see them!

Sunday- We finally taught Orisia!! 

Oh yeah and here's one scripture for y'all.  Alma 33:23, "your burdens may be light, through the joy of his Son."  Christ has already suffered for each of us, and he wants us to use the atonement so we can be forgiven!  It makes him happy when we turn to him and he can help us.  And what a blessing that is, that he can lift our burdens and take everything away...all because he loves us.    

Well family, I hope y'all have a good rest of the holidays break.  Enjoy the movie y'all are gonna see today and skiing later.  Thank you for all your prayers! 

Guess what?!   I LOVE YOU!  (I hope that makes you think of Jo:)

Love Always, Sister Schmutz